{"id":51733,"date":"2025-11-13T17:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T17:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/13\/one-direction-and-justin-bieber-album-battle-10-years-later-who-won\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T17:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T17:43:13","slug":"one-direction-and-justin-bieber-album-battle-10-years-later-who-won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/13\/one-direction-and-justin-bieber-album-battle-10-years-later-who-won\/","title":{"rendered":"One Direction and Justin Bieber Album Battle 10 Years Later: Who Won?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tThe great pop battle of 2015 wasn\u2019t really a battle at all, even Justin Bieber<\/a> knew that. \u201cIt\u2019s a friendly competition,\u201d Bieber said in a radio interview<\/a> shortly after One Direction<\/a> announced that their fifth studio album, Made in the AM<\/em>, would arrive on the same day as his redemptive comeback record, Purpose<\/a>. <\/em>\u201cI think it was a strategy on their part, \u2018cause my release date was first.\u201d Whoever made the call to claim Nov. 13 for One Direction might have assumed that Bieber would flake.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the boy band announced their album <\/em>on Sept. 22, 2015, Purpose <\/em>had only been rumored <\/em>to be arriving on Friday, November the 13th. Nothing was set in stone as far as the public knew. It didn\u2019t even have a title yet, though Purpose <\/em>ultimately rolled off the tongue better than Bieber\u2019s<\/em> Highly Anticipated Next Album. <\/em>In the three years that followed 2012\u2019s Believe<\/em>, Bieber announced his retirement from the music industry, backtracked with the R&B-influenced Journals<\/em>, and couldn\u2019t seem to stop blowing up his career. In that same span of time, One Direction released three studio albums, embarked on three world tours, and found themselves down one member after Zayn Malik quit the band.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis all made it easy to frame their double release date as an intense face-off. There were high stakes and passionate fanbases ready for battle on both sides, despite the inevitable overlap in their followings. Sometimes sides just have to be chosen. We can blame J-14 magazine printing single-page Bieber posters on the back of two-page One Direction spreads for that. When the sales were counted for Purpose <\/em>and Made in the AM <\/em>in their race to Number One on the Billboard Hot 100, Bieber came out ahead <\/a>by 190,000 units. It couldn\u2019t be fairly called a fight. But looking back, it\u2019s clear that Bieber and One Direction were much closer in non-quantitative ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPurpose<\/em><\/a> took the top slot with 649,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. Bieber\u2019s comeback was one for the ages. The record\u2019s lead single \u201cWhat Do You Mean?\u201d was a chart-topping hit, and its apologetic successor \u201cSorry\u201d marked a career best. Bieber collaborated with Halsey, Travis Scott, and Big Sean, but also stood on his own with highlights \u201cCompany\u201d and \u201cBeen You.\u201d Even his motivational speaker approach on the closing track \u201cAll In It\u201d added unexpected depth to the record. \u201cGrowing up, I always felt like I had to be the best at everything,\u201d he confessed on the outro. \u201c\u2018Cause I just didn\u2019t think I was good enough and maybe if I was good at something that I\u2019d get recognition from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tBieber was rejuvenated, a well-oiled hit-making machine on an era-defining streak with Purpose<\/em>, even as he shouldered the weight of the past. It spent 156 weeks on the Billboard 200, was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2017 Grammy Awards, and took him on his first stadium tour. Meanwhile, One Direction were nearing the end of their second stadium tour when Made in the AM <\/em><\/a>was released. They notched 49 total weeks on the chart after the album debuted at Number Two with 459,000 album-equivalent units. It\u2019s their only album to miss the top slot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne Direction was just Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson by then. They\u2019d released an album every year since 2011 like clockwork, originally with Malik, as well, but this one would turn out to be their last. They never took it on the road, even after they spent all that time perfecting the art of stadium-ready pop-rock<\/a>. One Direction typically recorded their albums while they were on the road touring the previous one. They\u2019d slip into nearby studios on their off days then head back inside. The burnout eventually caught up to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was something quieter and more introspective about Made in the AM<\/em>, even in its most bombastic moments. \u201cHey Angel,\u201d the explosive album opener, asks the question, \u201cDo you ever cry when we waste away our lives?\u201d They sang about flashing cameras, broken hearts, and growing apart on \u201cPerfect,\u201d \u201cInfinity,\u201d and \u201cWalking in the Wind,\u201d and on everything else, really. It sounded like everything had finally clicked into place for them as musicians. \u201cWhat a Feeling\u201d is the truest testament to this, and even that song gives the sense they knew it wouldn\u2019t last, asking, \u201cAre we running out of time?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tOne Direction\u2019s first single as a four-piece, \u201cDrag Me Down,\u201d gave little indication that the end of the band would follow soon after. They confirmed their now-indefinite hiatus a month after it dropped. There was something disjointed internally. \u201cThere was periods where literally, I\u2019d say for five years, I didn\u2019t leave the hotel once,\u201d Horan said in a podcast interview last week<\/a>. In 2021, Payne drew a line between this kind of life and his struggles with addiction. \u201cThe best way to secure us because of how big it got was just to lock us in our rooms,\u201d he said at the time<\/a>. \u201cAnd of course, what\u2019s in the room? Mini bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe band\u2019s schedule didn\u2019t leave room for getting into too much trouble, at least not in view of the public. The closest they got was a leaked video of Malik and Tomlinson sharing a joint in 2014. But mostly, trouble was Bieber terrain. That same year, the singer was arrested for drag racing and driving drunk, then charged with misdemeanor vandalism after egging his neighbor\u2019s house. There were more controversies the year prior, and battles he faced behind closed doors. \u201cThis life can rip you apart,\u201d Bieber told NME<\/em><\/a> <\/em>in 2015. \u201cNo one knew what I was feeling. I was rebelling against something deeper, and it took me a minute to realize I\u2019m not gonna let them win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut that point in their careers, Bieber and One Direction were suffering from the same effects of fame. When Purpose <\/em>and Made in the AM <\/em>were released, Bieber and Styles were both 21 years old. The rest of the band\u2019s members were either 22 or 23. The piercing screams of pop stardom was all they\u2019d known since they were teenagers. When Malik left the band, it was with the explicit goal of having the chance \u201cto be a normal 22-year-old.\u201d Four months later, he signed with RCA Records as a solo artist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCould any of them have actually walked away from it all? Maybe, if that\u2019s what they really wanted. But none of them did. In the decade that followed the singer\u2019s comeback and the band\u2019s farewell, it became evident that what they actually craved was the grace, both personally and creatively, that they weren\u2019t afforded before. The hysteria isn\u2019t as intense now as it was a decade ago, which seems to have been helpful in allowing them to find some version of that grace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBieber seems perpetually plagued by some level of it. This year, he verbally sparred with paparazzi on a few viral occasions. He also turned his Instagram Story into a diary, admitting he feels \u201ctraumatized\u201d <\/a>as well as \u201cunequipped and unqualified most days.\u201d<\/a> And yet, he experienced a creative breakthrough on Swag<\/em><\/a>, his seventh album. It\u2019s more uninhibited and less polished than Purpose <\/em>was, but charged with a sense of curiosity. \u201cHaving full creative freedom, sadly, is something new for him as an artist,\u201d a source close to Bieber told Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tBieber wasn\u2019t pleading for forgiveness and a return to pop\u2019s good graces this time. As solo artists, One Direction are no longer interrogating the cost of being there. That isn\u2019t to say there isn\u2019t more to unpack within that, only that those conversations are mostly happening extramusically for them. \u201cThat was a tough thing for all of us, working out, \u2018Who am I outside of Liam in One Direction, or Louis in One Direction?\u2019\u201d Tomlinson recently said on the Diary of a CEO<\/em><\/a> <\/em>podcast. \u201c\u2018Who am I and what does that look like?\u2019 That question is really, really intimidating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPayne was never able<\/a> to find a satisfying answer. The singer died in October 2024 following a fall from his hotel balcony. When the news broke, Bieber reposted a video of tributes that comforted fans through their grief. He added the caption, \u201cRest easy Liam.\u201d No one in One Direction was more transparent about the struggles that came with being in the band \u2014 and being out of it \u2014 than Payne. He candidly discussed addiction and aired out grievances with his bandmates. He still showed up to support them. Payne attended Tomlinson\u2019s documentary premiere <\/a>and Horan\u2019s most recent tour despite harsh backlash from fans accusing him of seeking attention by doing so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBieber <\/strong>similarly open about his darker moments. While discussing his own experience with addiction in 2021, the singer told GQ<\/em><\/a> that there was a time not too long after that album arrived when security guards would periodically check his pulse throughout the night to make sure he was still breathing. There\u2019s a monumental amount of grief packed into that statement. It\u2019s harrowing to imagine a world in which there is no comeback.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tIt weighs more heavily with Payne gone, and with every subsequent listen to Made in the AM. <\/em>That album is about, more than anything else, saying goodbye. It\u2019s a perfect foil to Bieber\u2019s homecoming on Purpose<\/em>. For the fans who have lived with these records for the past decade, those songs have become just as much about them as the people who created them. The same ink that wrote One Direction\u2019s final chapter as Bieber turned the page on a new one was used to shape their own \u2014 an enduring cycle of coming and going, facing battles both internal and external.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his last performance,<\/a> hosted at a private venue in London in 2022, Payne performed a cover of the blockbuster Purpose <\/em>single \u201cLove Yourself.\u201d Earlier that year, the singer shared<\/a> that he had a chance to clear the air with Bieber a while after the great pop battle of 2015. \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019ve always really felt for you mate and I think in our situation, we all suffer from the same disease,\u2019\u201d Payne said. \u201cWe all have this thing about us that we have to live with that\u2019s part of our fame. I think it\u2019s better if we all stick together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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The great pop battle of 2015 wasn\u2019t really a battle at all, even Justin Bieber knew that. \u201cIt\u2019s a friendly competition,\u201d Bieber said in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":51734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}