Justin Bieber Reveals Christmas Album Inspiration

6:06 AM PDT 10/18/2011 by THR Staff

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"My song is 'Mistletoe,' my album is 'Under the Mistletoe,' so don't get it confused," he jokes.

How did Justin Bieber set up his Christmas album, Under the Mistletoe?

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"I just picked my favorite Christmas songs. I picked 'Silent Night,' I picked 'Santa [Claus Is] Coming to Town,' because everyone loves those songs. Those are classics. They get people excited for Christmas," the singer tells MTV News. "And then, for songs that we wrote, we wanted to make enough new songs for people to hear new music and not just hear some classics. There's a lot of new stuff on there."

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"It's different, because you've gotta think Christmastime. You've gotta think, 'What's at Christmas? Mistletoe, reindeer, Santa, all these things.' And especially when it's not Christmastime, it's hard to really get your mind around it," adds Bieber. "But once you get into it, like, I was really thinking it was Christmastime when I was writing this album. ... We had Christmas cookies [in the studio]."

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He didn't originally intend the follow-up to his smash hit My World 2.0 to be a holiday album.

"I was going to put out my album soon anyways, and I was thinking, 'It's near Christmastime. If I'm going to release an album near Christmas, I figure maybe I'd just do a Christmas album.' The fans get more music, and everyone's happy," says Bieber.

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Bieber released the first single from the album, "Mistletoe," on Monday on iTunes and Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM radio show. The video premiered at 7:54 p.m. ET/PT on MTV the same day.

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Still, Bieber jokes, "People get confused: My song is 'Mistletoe,' my album is Under the Mistletoe, so don't get it confused. Don't get it twisted."

Under the Mistletoe -- which includes a duet with Mariah Carey -- hits stores on Nov. 1.