The 2010s File Feature
#thatPOWER
The Making and Chart History of "thatPOWER" by will.i.am Featuring Justin Bieber "thatPOWER" is a dance-pop and electro-pop single by will.i.am, the Los Ange…
01 The Story
The Making and Chart History of "#thatPOWER" by will.i.am Featuring Justin Bieber
"#thatPOWER" is a dance-pop and electro-pop single by will.i.am, the Los Angeles musician and producer born William James Adams Jr., featuring Justin Bieber. Released in April 2013 as a single from will.i.am's fourth studio album #willpower, the track paired two of the most commercially prominent names in pop music at the time and became one of the most-discussed pop collaborations of that year.
Will.i.am had been one of the primary architects of the Black Eyed Peas' commercial dominance in the late 2000s, and #willpower was his most ambitious solo project, an album that enlisted a roster of major pop collaborators to position him as a solo artist in his own right rather than primarily as a member of the Peas. Justin Bieber's inclusion on "#thatPOWER" was one of the album's highest-profile partnerships, and the song's release was supported by the full promotional machinery of both artists' labels and management structures.
The song was produced by will.i.am himself, in collaboration with additional producers, employing the kind of dense, maximalist electronic pop production that had become his commercial signature. The track features layered synthesizers, prominent vocal processing, and the high-energy build-and-release structure associated with EDM-influenced pop of the early 2010s. Will.i.am's production approach during this period was characterized by an embrace of electronic excess, packing arrangements with multiple competing sonic elements in a way that distinguished them from the cleaner, more restrained production of earlier pop eras.
Justin Bieber's contribution to the track was primarily vocal, providing a contrasting melodic element against will.i.am's more rhythmically-focused delivery. In 2013, Bieber was at the peak of his first phase of commercial dominance, transitioning from teen pop toward a more mature musical identity, and his involvement in an electronic dance-influenced production was consistent with that broader effort to evolve his sonic brand.
"#thatPOWER" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 42 in the chart week dated April 6, 2013, a strong opening position driven by digital download activity and the combined fan bases of both featured artists. The single then experienced some fluctuation before reaching its peak position of number 17 on the chart dated May 11, 2013. In total, the song spent 16 weeks on the Hot 100, a solid run for a pop single of this type in the competitive spring 2013 environment.
The single performed well on the Billboard Pop Songs chart, where its EDM-influenced production made it a natural candidate for Top 40 radio adds. Pop radio programmers were actively seeking music that bridged the gap between electronic dance music's club-oriented audience and the mainstream pop audience, and "#thatPOWER"'s combination of recognizable pop stars with contemporary dance production made it an ideal vehicle for that bridging function.
The music video for "#thatPOWER" was directed with significant production values, incorporating the kinds of visual spectacle and technology-inflected imagery that will.i.am had become associated with through his work with the Black Eyed Peas and his solo projects. The video received strong placements on MTV, YouTube, and Vevo, where it accumulated substantial viewership during the promotional period, ultimately contributing to the hundreds of millions of YouTube views the recording has accumulated over the years since its release.
The song's promotional campaign benefited from will.i.am's extensive media presence during this period. He was simultaneously one of the judges on the television series The Voice in the United Kingdom, which gave him a regular prime-time television platform that amplified his public profile and, by extension, the visibility of his musical releases. This cross-media presence was a strategic element of the #willpower album campaign.
Within the broader context of Justin Bieber's discography, "#thatPOWER" represents part of a series of high-profile collaborations during his early career that demonstrated his commercial viability as a featured artist and guest, not merely as a headline act. His presence on will.i.am's track followed a pattern of carefully selected collaborative appearances designed to maintain his cultural presence across multiple musical contexts.
Chart Performance in Context
The single's peak of number 17 and its 16-week Hot 100 run reflected the competitive nature of the spring 2013 chart environment, when multiple major pop acts were vying for radio adds and digital download engagement simultaneously. The song performed consistently across its chart cycle, reaching its peak in its fifth week on the chart and maintaining a sustained presence thereafter, a pattern consistent with a well-executed radio promotion campaign rather than a brief viral spike.
02 Song Meaning
Themes and Meaning of "#thatPOWER" by will.i.am Featuring Justin Bieber
"#thatPOWER" is a song about the sensation of personal vitality and unstoppable momentum. The "power" referenced in the title is not explicitly defined, but the song constructs it as a felt experience rather than a concrete quality: the sense of being at peak capacity, fully alive, and in command of one's circumstances. It is an expression of exuberance and self-confidence rendered in the language of early 2010s electronic pop.
Will.i.am's songwriting in this period consistently returned to themes of elevation, transcendence, and the feeling of being exceptional or uniquely alive in the moment. "That power" is a concept that deliberately resists precise definition, functioning instead as an emotional placeholder that listeners can fill with their own experience of heightened personal energy. This vagueness is not a lyrical weakness; it is what allows the song to connect with a wide range of listeners for whom "power" might mean creative momentum, romantic confidence, athletic energy, or simple youthful exuberance.
Justin Bieber's vocal contribution adds a dimension of romantic and youthful energy to the track's power concept. His lines introduce the image of the physical and emotional experience of attraction and desire, connecting the song's abstract power theme to the more concrete territory of interpersonal intensity. The combination of will.i.am's declarative confidence and Bieber's more emotionally vulnerable register creates a layered emotional texture that gives the song more depth than either performer would have generated alone.
The song participates in a tradition of electronic pop that treats the dancefloor as a space of liberation. The production's escalating energy builds toward moments of release that mirror the physical experience of movement, suggesting that the "power" described in the lyrics is partly the power of music itself to alter the body's state. This reading locates the song's meaning in its sonic experience rather than purely in its lyrics, which is appropriate for a genre where the relationship between production and feeling is as important as words.
The use of a hashtag in the song's title was a deliberate acknowledgment of social media culture, reflecting the moment in which the song was made. Will.i.am was notably interested in the intersection between popular music and digital culture during this period, and the title gesture of incorporating Twitter-style formatting into the song's name was an attempt to position the record as native to the social media environment in which his audience lived. The song was designed to be not merely listened to but shared, tagged, and discussed in digital spaces.
Critical reception of "#thatPOWER" was mixed, with some reviewers finding its maximalist production overwhelming and its lyrical content insubstantial, while others praised its energy and the effectiveness of the Bieber collaboration as a commercial pairing. This division of critical opinion reflects a genuine tension in the song's identity: it is unapologetically designed for immediate emotional impact and commercial performance rather than for lyrical depth or musical subtlety, and critics who valued the latter qualities found it wanting.
Culturally, the song occupies a specific place as a document of the early-to-mid 2010s pop moment when electronic dance music production dominated mainstream radio and when the most commercially successful artists were those who could adapt their identities to that sonic environment. Both will.i.am and Bieber were demonstrating their adaptability to that environment with this track, and the song's commercial performance confirmed that their combined audiences were receptive to the result.
The track's sustained streaming numbers reflect its effectiveness as a piece of pure pop music: energetic, accessible, and connected to a specific cultural moment in a way that invites revisitation from those who experienced that moment as part of their personal history.
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