Toward whom is "Sorry" an apology? According to Justin Bieber, the song is a post-mortem plea for reconciliation with his former girlfriend, Selena Gomez. But there is plenty of reason to believe it was directed toward the world at large. The pop phenom and OG YouTube superstar spent his transition into adulthood mired in bizarre, boorish behavior that earned him felony charges and threatened to puncture his clean, teen-dream image, and by the time "Sorry" dropped in October 2015, that image badly needed rehabilitation. Luckily for Bieber, the track proved an enormous success, not just because of its aesthetic trendiness but because of its universally relatable message - a message that recast the singer as a man willing to acknowledge the many mistakes of his past.
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