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

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

At the gym today, whatever music service they were using got on a long string of 1D songs. Not a big fan of theirs, but I've heard what the radio plays and checked out an album in the past so I recognized a song here and there. Then I heard a song that sounded like some kind of awesome 70's Fleetwood Mac thing and thought "that couldn't possibly be 1D, right?" But it was. Now I have discovered "What a Feeling" :D

We told you!

Is this the place to discuss how awful "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" is or?

it was potentially so obviously awful that it didn't merit discussion

xp there were too many Zayn posts in here, how am I supposed to filter through the noise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0GKGpObgPY

1. glad there's one 1d solo-career that's going to follow up sorta on "clouds"
2. the press release mentioned bowie + queen + produced by jeff bhasker, so i assumed it would sound like fun. don't think i was far off lol
3. feels like it needs like...another part

my first thought was "the nate reuss solo album that people will care about has arrived"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uD6s-X3590

this is not exactly what i want from harry, although i can't say i wasn't expecting something ed sheeran like at this point of the game.

i wouldn't go so far as to invoke ed sheeran. it's a pleasant beatles pastiche

"beatles" meaning "blackbird" mostly

i've only listened to it once. i guess i want so much a new fleetwood mac pastiche that immediately i almost reject it. but i know there's a big probability of this song winning me over in a couple of days.

it's nice! but there's not a lot there. which is the theme of harry's solo work so far

that was pleasant and ignorable

i'm starting to appreciate Zayn's Miguel rip better after these two songs, honestly—at least that was distinctive. this feels like pastiche without any of the palpable joy in pastiche-making that 1D itself had.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5FzCz8NC58

i wasn't expecting a DNCE-like song from Niall Horan. it's ok , i guess?
his voice is unrecognizable.

Whoa! Very pleasantly surprised, I really like this.
Seems to me more like Jai Paul lite (the guitar/vocal editing in the verse) or Nick Jonas

yes, i would put is somewhere nearby the jonas family.

DNCE? it sounds like shawn mendes

Harry's album leaked and it has a couple of bleatles-pastiches. I think i will love it in a matter of days (although the paramore album is not helping).

And Liam will release soon a single with Quavo. I'm expecting something JT-like.

i hope liam tanks

my gut says it will

the second song on this sounds like oasis. i've never been so quick to delete an album

lmao at "carolina." "oh yeah for my first solo album i'm just gonna rewrite 'stuck in the middle with you,' seems fine"

this is enjoyably slight

I'm enjoying this with muted expectations. It all sounds very good but it's hard to get over Harry's shallows as a writer

lmao at "carolina." "oh yeah for my first solo album i'm just gonna rewrite 'stuck in the middle with you,' seems fine"

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Friday, May 12, 2017 10:45 AM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for a considerable portion of his audience, doing that is probs a novelty. places like music-writer twitter and ilx make it hard to forget that tweens/adolescents are the primary buyer demographic for this stuff (whether the solo stuff is being targeted at them anymore or not), but, like...they /arel lol

*/are/

kid can't write lyrics for shit but otherwise the harry solo album is p solid pleasant 70s rock pastiche stuff. i listened to styles as well as the liam payne single for something i'm writing and i assure you the payne thing is 1,000x worse and more tryhard

oh the liam payne single is dogshit, don't get me wrong. also i don't hate this record and am not blind to its audience

word. i was actually wondering who the audience is - fans who bought 1D records for the vaguely country-rock ballads? did they have those? I should clarify that I have never listened to more than like, two 1D songs, enough to understand the appeal but realize it wasn't my jam

So many good songs..

My seven-year-old niece loves "What Makes You Beautiful," and hearing to her belt along with the chorus has earned the song a small place in my affections, but on the whole, idgi. Then again, I never liked the Backstreet Boys either.

“fireproof” should get some kind of award for production

Well this is kinda great

today in Things You Cannot Make Up: I was in the cafe I go to every day, working on my dissertation about @Harry_Styles, when outside the window appears.... the real human Harry Styles pic.twitter.com/azCqSZYqll

— Ally Gross (@AllysonGross) May 21, 2018

<3

he's....aged