Former One Direction member Zayn Malik released his debut solo album overnight. Called Mind of Mine, the album is already streaming on Spotify. And can I just say, I was never a One Direction fan, barely listened to any of their music, and couldn’t care less if Zayn Malik was successful with his debut solo album or not. But, Mind of Mine? Oh it’s surprisingly fabulous.
As many have already noticed too, it is exactly one year since Malik left One Direction and it definitely seems a bit odd that his solo album dropped right on the same date. Malik, however, says it’s nothing but a coincidence. Hmmm. Maybe.
As for music from the album, Zayn’s first solo from the album ‘Pillow Talk‘ was released earlier in the year and immediately went to number 1 in the UK and on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It’s still currently at the number 6 position at Billboard, with another track ‘Like I Would‘ at 55.
His latest single ‘BeFoUr‘ was released last week, and I’d say it’s pretty likely that will be charting too.
When it comes to Mind of Mine itself, I think the title says it all. Because Malik has said ever since he left 1D he wanted to stop making music he didn’t care about, and make the songs he really loved. And you can tell from Mind of Mine, that is exactly what he has done.
From the slow and sad ‘It’s You‘, which is going to break a million young girls’ hearts, to the midtempo ‘She‘ and the absolutely gorgeous ‘Rear View‘, every song on the album was obviously crafted with love.
My favorite track on Mind of Mine, though? ‘Drunk‘ as, to me, it just seems so beautifully smooth.
And I’ll leave you with the only irritating thing about Mind of Mine, and one that Malik could very easily have done without. That he went with an odd mix of uppercase and lower case letters for his song titles. Really, Zayn. Pretentious much?
Listen to Mind of Mine on Spotify. It’s well worth putting aside an hour to do so and, of course, grab it on all major digital music sites.
And then watch Zayn Malik’s official video for ‘BeFoUr’ below. He released that just a few hours ago and it already has almost a million hits. Like I said. It’s his next big hit.