Tobias Jesso Jr. celebrated turning 40 with a serendipitous gift: Justin Bieber’s “Swag,” an album he’d worked on over the past three years, happened to be released on the same day his new decade began this past July. “I was cleaning up my house, getting ready for my birthday, listening to it. I was like, ‘I can’t even fucking believe he did it,’” recalls Jesso from his Los Angeles home as he prepares to move to Australia. “I was in the room for all of this melting pot stuff and here it is, the finished thing, and it was so good. I love those records, and it was such a proud moment. It was just amazing.”
“Swag” was one of many milestones this year for the singer-songwriter, who scored a 2026 Grammy nomination for songwriter of the year (non-classical) in early November. He’s no stranger to the category — he won the trophy during its inaugural year in 2023 — but his inclusion further cemented his standing as one of pop music’s most dependable scribes. A seasoned veteran whose first credit was on Adele’s “When We Were Young,” Jesso appeared in the liner notes this year for songs including Miley Cyrus’ “Golden Burning Sun,” Haim’s “Relationships” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” the latter of which became one of 2025’s breakout hits.
Since debuting as a tender balladeer with his debut solo album, “Goon,” in 2015, Jesso has amassed a songwriting discography that spans everyone from Daniel Caesar and Camila Cabello to Harry Styles and Dua Lipa. He exercises the luxury of often saying no to collaboration and picks projects that align with his own tastes and interests. “I only want to work on music that I’m gonna put on a playlist for myself,” he says. “It’s like being a part of a product that you know you want to use when it’s done. It’s a lot different than being a part of something where you’re like, ‘I would never fucking use this product.’ You know I mean? It gives you a different sense of purpose.”
For Jesso, that meant stepping into the world of Bieber back in 2022 to begin work on “Swag,” which picked up four Grammy nominations, including album of the year. The pop singer assembled a group of certified hitmakers — Dijon, Carter Lang and Dylan Wiggins among them — to forge a new musical direction following his change in management. “I think Justin was in a period of going like, ‘How am I gonna represent myself?’” he says. “And a good way for him to proceed with that was to put people around him whom he trusted.” Jesso recalls that the album slowly took shape as they wrote in locations like France and Iceland, where he realized everything had finally fallen into place. “All the trust had been built. The family was a unit. We just needed to wrap it up, put the pieces together.”
He also appeared in the credits for Dean’s “Man I Need,” a global hit that reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Jesso was introduced to the English singer-songwriter after his frequent collaborator Sir Nolan, with whom he co-wrote Caesar’s “Always,” invited him to work on “Something Inbetween” with Dean. “I have a routine where I go in trying to make everyone feel comfortable and settle down easy,” he says. “But I could tell within five minutes she doesn’t need that — she gave the forceful energy of somebody who was there for a reason, knew what they were doing, who they were, what they wanted to sound like and was ready to rock.”
Amid his fruitful songwriting career, Jesso carved out six weeks to record his long-awaited sophomore album “Shine,” which he released with little notice in late November. The album is a curtailed collection of eight songs that could potentially scan as demos — he performed and recorded each one over and over, picking the best for the project — and addresses everything from the grief of a divorce to the blessings of his son. It was an unlikely venture for Jesso, who essentially swore off his solo career after releasing “Goon,” disillusioned by the spotlight and the pressures that came with it.
“[Shine] was the culmination of what happened in my 30s and how I had processed my own advice and everything I was going through,” he says. “I was so bummed out and depressed and in a weird place, but the music wasn’t stressful. It was so helpful. I hadn’t really needed that for a long time. I’d been so in my head. And I was using all of my music stuff for other people. So it was really strange to come back to it. And I think I came back to it in a grounded way, where I’m already saying to my manager like, oh, I think I could do this again. And this is way, way better than what it was like for ‘Goon,’ you know, but I’m a different person.”
“Shine” was, in the end, the product of working out who he is as a musician while helping others to do the same, outside of the expectations and accolades that come with it. “I’m so grateful that I’ve established a career where Grammys could be a part of it,” he says. “And I would definitely love as many Grammys as they want to give me. But it’s not the intention or the goal. My whole thing with the Grammys this year was just to not sacrifice my own integrity to get it. And if I do get another Grammy and it’s based solely on the songs that I’ve been a part of, I’ll feel very proud and also proud of the artists that I worked with for making it all happen.”
