When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to hear the new hotness drop on the radio. I remember when Tupac Shakur was just a couple weeks out of the joint, one of the local radio stations played a very static-y portion of what would become “California Love”. It was a radio moment I’d never forget both because of how much I yearned for new Tupac music and also because of the tremendous hype job that the radio DJ did. I couldn’t wait to hear the slice of that song again and I was for sure going to keep it tuned on the dial until it was played again.

Fast forward sixteen years and there’s a different way to hype new music now. Yep, the artist’s Twitter page. A little over a week ago, Justin Bieber tweeted out the following:

“Die In Your Arms” drops just slightly two months after Bieber’s first single off his new album Believe, the heavily ‘NSync influenced “Boyfriend”. I think he was even studying Justin Timberlake’s vocal cracks for that one. “Die In Your Arms” is reminiscent of a teenaged Michael Jackson all the way down to the “We’ve Got A Good Thing Going On” sample.

The worst thing that could happen to Bieber is having to grow up. Much like our own high school years, the post-kiddie years of a young pop star are the toughest. The detractors come out hard and try to throw you in the locker. But based on his first two singles, he’s making the right moves to grow older with his audience. Will it work? I think it will, at least for this album. Check out “Die In Your Arms”. I’ve also included young MJ’s “We’ve Got A Good Thing Going” below for reference.