A seventeen-year-old pop star making a Christmas album usually looks like a novelty, not a career move. Justin Bieber treated it as a statement. On November 1, 2011, the Canadian singer released Under the Mistletoe, his first holiday record and only his second studio album, on Island, RBMG and Schoolboy.
Rollout and collaborations
The plan had been public since August 25, 2011, when Bieber announced the project. What followed was a careful rollout: on September 30 he revealed the cover and title on Facebook, and on October 4 Mariah Carey said she had recorded a duet of her own song with him. The first single, a new original called “Mistletoe,” arrived on October 17, written and produced with The Messengers. Manager Scooter Braun and vocal producer Kuk Harrell confirmed that collaborations with Sean Kingston and Taylor Swift were being prepared. Later announcements brought Boyz II Men, Usher and The Band Perry into the project. The album would include original songs as well as covers of Christmas hymns and standards.
Under the Mistletoe was not a quick covers collection. Of its fifteen tracks, seven were original songs co-written by Bieber, while the rest reworked Christmas hymns and standards. Guests included Usher, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes and The Band Perry, a lineup that brought together pop stars and holiday-music veterans.
Chart performance and sales
The risk paid off immediately. The record debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and topped the Billboard Top Holiday Albums list, with first-week U.S. sales of 210,000 copies. It was the first Christmas album by a male artist to open at the top of the Billboard 200. Bieber became the first artist with three number-one albums on that chart before turning eighteen.
Critics were split. Metacritic averaged the album at 54 out of 100 from four reviews. AllMusic gave it three stars out of five, with reviewer Andy Kellman noting that Bieber did not merely pass through a Christmas album, and that he sounded more engaged on the original songs. Entertainment Weekly graded it a C+, while The Guardian gave two stars out of five. Some critics were far more positive. Jason Scott of Seattle Post-Intelligencer called the album a wonderful performance, and Jon Caramanica of The New York Times wrote that Bieber had never sounded so good. Adam Markovitz of Entertainment Weekly argued that the original songs were better than the covers, while Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian felt the guest appearances were the album’s saving grace.
Continued sales and certifications
The second single paired Bieber with an established name. “All I Want for Christmas Is You (SuperFestive!)” with Mariah Carey came out on December 9, 2011 as an Italian radio-only release. By the end of that year the album had sold 1,245,000 copies in the United States. Its chart run stayed strong after the debut. The album dipped to sixth with 97,000 copies, then climbed to fifth with 84,000 before a fourth-week bump to 142,000. Nielsen SoundScan ranked it the eleventh best-selling album of 2011, and it also debuted at number one in Canada and entered the top ten in Australia, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.
The record kept selling long after the decorations came down. It later earned double platinum certification from the RIAA for more than two million units. The album continued to sell after the holiday season.
Under the Mistletoe was Bieber's second studio album and his first built around a holiday. The number-one debut suggested the audience was ready. The album received mixed reviews, but it sold well.