What Do You Mean?
| "What Do You Mean?" | ||||||||||
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| Single by Justin Bieber | ||||||||||
| from the album Purpose | ||||||||||
| Released | August 28, 2015 | |||||||||
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| Recorded | 2015 | |||||||||
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| Length | 3:26 | |||||||||
| Label | Def Jam | |||||||||
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| Justin Bieber singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"What Do You Mean?" is a song recorded by Canadian singer Justin Bieber for his fourth studio album Purpose (2015). The song was released on August 28, 2015, as the album's lead single by Def Jam. Written by Bieber, Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd and Mason Levy, the song was produced by MdL and co-produced by Bieber. "What Do You Mean?" is a pop and tropical house song, with its instrumentation consisting in light flourishes of panpipes, looped vocal samples, piano chords, fervent synths, bass and "slick beat" elements with the sound of a clock ticking, while Bieber uses a smooth, soulful vocal. Lyrically, "What Do You Mean?" talks about not being able to figure out the opposite sex with Bieber asking a girl why her body language is conflicting with her words.
It was featured in several year-end lists of best songs of 2015. Commercially, the song topped the charts in several countries, including Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway. In Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, "What Do You Mean?" was Bieber's first number-one single. The song's music video features Bieber in bed with a young woman and getting kidnapped by masked men, as well as an appearance from actor John Leguizamo.
After releasing "Where Are Ü Now" with Skrillex and Diplo for their project Jack Ü and achieving worldwide success and acclaim with it, Bieber announced "What Do You Mean?" as the first single from his then-upcoming album on July 28, 2015 on On Air With Ryan Seacrest. While he was there, his manager Scooter Braun made Seacrest a promotional sign for the single to hold and suggested he should put the photo on his Instagram account. To further promote the song's release, Braun contacted several celebrities who started counting down the days until the release, among them Mariah Carey, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Big Sean, Alanis Morissette, Meghan Trainor, Britney Spears, Hilary Duff, Little Mix, Chris Martin, Carly Rae Jepsen, and many others. During an interview with Ryan Seacrest, he described it as "fun", "summery" and "amazing." Regarding its lyrics he commented: "Well, girls are often just flip-floppy. They say something and they mean something else. So … what do you mean? I don’t really know, that’s why I’m asking." Later, on August 19, 2015, Bieber direct-messaged different lyrics from the song to 49 randomly selected Twitter followers. As explained by Billboard's Jason Lipshut, "Each message included a clock animation with a different time that corresponded to the lyric’s placement in the song, and Beliebers spent Wednesday collectively piecing together the upcoming single’s lyrics in order." On August 5, 2015, Bieber presented the song to radio professionals at an iHeartMedia event.
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