Almost two billion views on YouTube started with a fictional girlfriend and a jealous boyfriend. The video for Treat You Better, released on July 12, 2016, cast Shawn Mendes as the better option for a girl trapped in an abusive relationship. It was a heavy narrative for a pop single, but it worked. Ten years later, the clip remains one of the defining images of his early career.
The video for Treat You Better, released on July 12, 2016, cast Shawn Mendes as the better option for a girl trapped in an abusive relationship.
The Canadian singer's second studio album, Illuminate, arrived on September 23, 2016, via Island Records. It followed Handwritten, his 2015 debut, and pushed him into a new sonic lane. Where Handwritten leaned on acoustic pop, Illuminate blended pop, rock, and blues. The shift was deliberate. Mendes was no longer just the kid from Vine with a guitar.
The numbers backed up the ambition. Illuminate debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, making it Mendes' second chart-topper in the United States. It also hit number one on the Canadian albums chart, repeating the feat in his home country. In the US, the album sold 145,000 copies in its first week. Of those, 121,000 were pure sales without streaming. Canada added another 21,000 units.
Treat You Better arrived months before the album, on June 3, 2016. The song climbed to the sixth position on the Billboard Hot 100. Its video followed on July 12. The storyline was direct: Mendes watches a girl suffer through a toxic relationship and positions himself as the healthier choice. The message resonated. The view count climbed toward two billion on YouTube.
Critical reception and sound
Critics were not unanimous, but the reception was largely positive. Rolling Stone, Idolator, Associated Press, and Billboard all weighed in on Illuminate. Some praised the maturity in Mendes' voice. Others noted the album's more textured arrangements. The blues and rock elements gave the songs more weight than the straightforward pop of his first record.
The second single, Mercy, went to American top-40 radio on October 18, 2016. It was a slower, more pleading track that showcased a different side of the album. The third single, There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back, came later, on April 20, 2017. That song debuted at number seven on the chart, giving Mendes another strong entry as the album cycle continued.
World tour and momentum
By spring 2017, the Illuminate World Tour was underway. It began in March of that year, just as There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back was gaining momentum. The tour carried the album's songs across arenas and amphitheaters. Mendes had gone from posting covers online to headlining major venues in under three years. Illuminate was the vehicle for that leap.
A decade later, in 2026, the album sits at a strange crossroads. It is not the record most people name when they talk about Shawn Mendes. That honor usually goes to later projects. But Illuminate is where the pop, rock, and blues mixture first clicked. It is where the stadium-sized hooks started to feel natural rather than borrowed.
The detail that lingers is the gap between the image and the reality. Treat You Better sold itself as a song about rescuing someone from a bad relationship. The video made that literal. But the album's deeper story is about a teenager figuring out how to sound bigger without losing the directness that got him noticed. Ten years on, that tension is exactly what makes Illuminate worth revisiting.