Billboard Celebrates the Bieber Brand

Just how does a 17-year-old kid from Stratford, Ontario get this big, this fast? That’s the still worthwhile industry-side question underpinning Billboard‘s candy-striped cover story by Kerri Mason. The publication calls “Under the Mistletoe,” a Christmas-themed album arriving November 1 that is already responsible for a Facebook app and Bieber’s first-ever number one iTunes single, the singer’s most musically mature work to date.

The first cited explanation comes from Teen Vogue entertainment editor Danielle Nussbaum, and it’s a pretty good, albeit obvious, one. Her take:

“Justin Bieber is a pop culture phenomenon, and he got that way through social media. His fans made him famous, and he’s responded in kind by giving them every single piece of himself that he can. He’s created a brand, but also granted his fans a level of access that a lot of musicians just don’t.”

She’s right. Bieber arrived at the optimum, tween social media star moment, and has leveraged today’s now ubiquitous platforms with a combination of Canadian and Christian smarts. Billboard shares a lot of interesting info about the charitable aspects of Bieber’s fall release, in both the main story and dedicated sidebar. But the strangest summary of his latest multimedia blitz comes from manager Scooter Braun: “Vocally, his balls have dropped.” Isn’t it a little late for that?

Previously on FishbowlLA:
Laguna Beach Author Says She is Now a ‘Belieber’