Looking back I feel when Bieber first hit the scene he had LeBron-level expectations placed on him for his career. I recently saw a post listing the best selling artists worldwide for each year of the past decade and was surprised he wasn't on there. Looking at Spotify's most streamed artists by year and he's never been #1 in a year either. In fact he's only made the top 5 twice. And in that time he's arguably been surpassed by a number of male performers like Drake, Ed Sheeran, Post, and Harry.

So is it fair to say that, despite having an amazing career, he never really did live up to his King of Pop potential?

Up till like 2019

Peaches is a BOP tho

who said king of pop

Absolutely, absolutely. Look at the heights he reached, look at the chunes he gave us.

his public image took a hit and I believe that he wasn’t as interested in being the ‘king’ and just worked with his strengths.

Regardless of how successful his career is I’m glad he made journals & purpose

but he had a pretty damn good career considering most child prodigies usually fall off before adulthood

Not entirely but its not really bc of music

he was crashing out for a long stretch of time and those incidents kinda damaged his public image in the eyes of the media, who stopped making him the hottest topic on all our screens.

I think musically he's one of the most talented in his generation & gone on a crazy run, hes nowhere near finished. but a big part of Pop success is having relationships. certain businesses, brands, won't prop him up or support him due to his past and he has taken some lumps over the years but all in all I do think his name still holds a lot of weight.

None of them ever do

He ain’t even hit JT or MJ level, d**** and Caucasian genes hit him hard late 20s

I know some people see that title as solely reserved for MJ, same with Elvis and King of Rock, but I've always seen it as more of a revolving title that's passed down

He's been popular since I was in 8th grade and you fellas are still talking about him.

Nome of the "Future kings of pop" ever actually made it to half the success MJ did not JT not Chris not Usher and not Harry Styles even one day.

honestly pretty sure that's the limes disease

Drake really the only true successor to the mantle. JT and Usher got damn close though. That long hiatus between FutureSex and 20/20 killed Justin

To be fair tho alot of that seems to be a personal choice I always say Bieber is Michael if he slowed down after the Pepsi commercial.

Justin had his spirals and has been pretty honest on not going as hard as he did as a kid and his regrets.

For Justin like all of them it was never gonna be possible to MJ status and I think he was the most self aware about what it would cost him and stopped.

No he isn't

literally remember being at the scholastic book fair in 3rd grade and seeing girls pushing past each other just to get his Poster, not even like he pulled up to the school. For him to still be a big artist and I'm in my 20s now is not easy. most of the ppl he came up in the same era as are completely irrelevant

Drake isn't anywhere near MJ and never will be infact Taylor Swift might be closer to MJ then Drake is realistically

Lebron-level expectations for Justin Bieber

Yes

His most recent era

My brother, that's the thing. He has been here for more than a decade now. It makes no sense why someone would say that he 'never reached his potential'!

tbf if MJ could have a 2nd go he wouldn't want to be MJ levels of success lol

that s*** looked like hell on earth tbh