One Direction - is this a legit new threat wrt to a new boy band invasion? y/n

kinda excited for the kehlani collab.

"it's you" still sounds to me like a song frank ocean might write for a disney movie

otm all of you

and now an upbeat one. it's nice. just nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqLzjlA2hYw

my wife said she spent an hour listening to One Direction yesterday. SUCCESS!

this is more like what i was expecting. kinda coasts on vibe but i can see myself really falling for it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIrXpp_Nlt4

BeFoUr>LIKE I WOULD>PiLlOwT4lK>>>>>>>>>>>iTs YoU

this stuff is all pretty middling

the typography of the song titles ;_;

i'm sort of surprised he can't sell any of these songs memorably, they're forgettable and i think it's largely due to him. "like i would" is just wooden oversinging from start to end

like it's really not a great sign when i'm thinking "man, nick jonas would sound so much better on this"

(jojo covered "pillowtalk" live last week and it was the first time i'd thought it was a half-decent song)

yeah as y'all can probably tell i am really struggling to like a zayn song

he's really not a good singer

his "no type" cover was the signal for me

I actually really like Be4uR, but remain cold to pretty much everything else he's released.

this is the most thrilling song zayn released, but it still isn't enough for me. i liked it, but i don't think i need to hear it many more times, so that must mean something...

i feel like there should be a Zayn thread just because i click on this thread because it's a One Direction thread and i'm still pretty dubious about his solo stuff

― ODD FUTURE WOLFGANG VAN HALEN ON BASS (some dude), Monday, March 7, 2016 3:57 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wish i used bookmarks so i could dramatically remove one from this thread

sorry his solo stuff isn't good enough to give him a thread

basically i want a Rolling Almost R&B thread where people can talk about Zayn and Nick Jonas far away from here and the R&B thread

sorry his solo stuff isn't good enough to give him a thread

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Thursday, March 17, 2016 11:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Funny given how this thread started off.

"it's you" is my fav of the zayn crop. i kinda like "pillowtalk" too and the rest i can do without. generally disappointing, yeah.

rolling almost r&b thread is a good idea

rolling r&bleh

^^^ that has to be the title

we could prob just give zayn it's own thread, i have a hard enough time keeping up w/ the rolling threads for music i actually like

rolling bootleg miguel thread

dunno why rolling pop isn't good enough for either zayn or jonas

am perched for a budget jeremih to pop up so i can call him jeremeh

been there done that

this zayn stuff isn't good but neither is 1D so

i'm way more into the idea of zayn as a popstar than the reality of zayn as a popstar

yeah :( oh well

i'm way more into the idea of zayn as a popstar than the reality of zayn as a popstar

― art baengels (monotony), Saturday, March 19, 2016 1:02 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this really sums up twitter culture of stanning for popstars despite continually underwhelming actual material

we'll always have that face i guess

lex otm

we'll always have that face i guess

― art baengels (monotony), Saturday, March 19, 2016 1:29 PM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why would you need it, there is more than one pretty person in the world

http://www.soulbounce.com/soul/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/zhane-pronounced-jah-nay-cover.jpg

leaked

it's better than i predicted but it also should be better.

imo it's not very good at all

i appreciate some of the songs: 'befour', 'she', 'drunk', 'wrong', 'borderz', but in the end it lacks charisma. the songs aren't really there and most of the time it seems he doesn't know how to enhance them.
i didn't hear the deluxe songs.
it could be worse, i guess, i don't want to be too harsh on him, i suppose.

i also would like to read a review of the album that doesn't have such a reductive point of view about one direction as this one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/arts/music/in-zayn-maliks-mind-of-mine-a-singer-eager-to-reclaim-parts-of-himself.html

I actually liked the album

i've only heard pillowtalk which didn't do much for me. a katherine recommendation is probably good enough reason to dive in tho

i wrote about the album
https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2016/03/23/zayn-malik-charts-new-direction-with-solo-album-mind-mine/dDKgwSP1xh6ugMJZhWuomK/story.html

most of the production on this is pretty one-dimensional i think... in general it just seems like a safe album. that said, "drunk" is one of the better songs i've heard this year. i listened to it like 30 times today. that one gets the gauzy atmosphere right while still also having some actual production details (backing harmonies & stuff) that give you something to chew on. he really should never be let around an electric guitar tho. "she" is also good!

nothing else has stuck w/ me except for "truth" but that one might be a tad too on the nose as a frank ocean album track rip off. that "it's you" is pretty treacly disappointing cuz there's a really nice simple and direct song in there somewhere.

agree with most here, overlong/oversung/ultimately pretty boring album where all the songs blur into each other. alt-r&b's attempts at profundity have always tended to the laughable so this pro forma, very try-hard attempt to replicate it falls pretty flat

i guess i'm most surprised at how uncharismatic and wooden a presence he is. it feels like he's singing so loudly all the time, no sense of dynamics at all, and you'd think that someone so indebted to mopey wispy alt-r&b would at least know to tone it down vocally

"that "it's you" is pretty treacly disappointing cuz there's a really nice simple and direct song in there somewhere.

― J0rdan S., Sábado, 26 de Março de 2016 7:18 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. I even prefer the live version, when he performed at the tonight show. if he had more songs like 'she' this could have been a way better album.

http://youtu.be/HVoiZolj78c

he should record an album in Urdu

That would be great, literally and simbolically.

he should drop the echo though -- as signifier of depth, as tip of the hat to "alt" R&B, as a way of obscuring a pretty but uninteresting voice

Most unlikely 1D-related review yet.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/435404/taking-temperature-american-pop

The audience was extremely pleasant, polite, well-behaved, and united in its appreciation for the artists. (The only time when there seemed to be a disproportionate response from one sector of the audience was for the performance of a guy named Zayn, whose romantic songs sparked an especially impressive level of frenzy from the females present. His songs were fine, but I think there was some “heartthrob” effect at work in the response. I don’t deny that he’s a handsome chap, but his work didn’t make me mark him as someone whose recordings I should seek out. Yes, I recognize that this is exactly the sort of thing that will be quoted back at me in the future if this guy becomes the Elvis or Sinatra of the 2020s.)

oh noes

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CjoemhQWUAAoiZK.jpg