January 3, Canadian singer and songwriter Justin Bieber released his first solo single in three years. After much anticipation, Bieber dropped his new song “Yummy”, the lead single to his upcoming fifth studio album, along with a lyric video through Def Jam Records. 

Since the release of “Yummy”, there has been quite a bit of controversy, most having to do with the way the song is being promoted by Bieber and his team. They have been called out several times for doing whatever they can to get the song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. One of their methods of promotion is having Bieber constantly remind fans to buy “Yummy” via Instagram. 

One of the ways that Bieber has used Instagram to make sure fans are buying his song is through a fan’s Instagram story. Bieber reposted a video that a fan had posted on Instagram. The video explained what fans need to do to get “Yummy” to number one on the charts. He has since deleted the post, but many people found the post to have been too aggressive. Bieber has also told fans to play “Yummy” while they sleep because it would make the number of listens increase, making the song get higher on the charts. 

Even with all of the promotion that Bieber and his team have done, “Yummy” was only able to reach number two on the Billboard Hot 100 which was not the goal. However, it was on the charts for three weeks. This could be the result of many fans and critics not being very impressed with the song.

“Yummy” is a dead-on-arrival return that even Bieber sounds bored with,” said Pitchfork, a website that critiques the latest songs.

Some people found the song to be a lousy way for Bieber to have a comeback. Sharing this opinion, I was expecting a much more ground-breaking comeback from Bieber, especially since “Yummy” is his first solo single in three years. It was such a shame. Critics can only hope that the rest of the album is full of many better songs that will make up for this disappointing attempt to revive Bieber’s name.