In March 2015, Malik left One Direction, forcing the group to soldier on as a quartet. As far as the random capitalization goes, maybe it stands for “bye, fuck u”. Malik made a spot-on choice of debut song to propel his post-One Direction solo career with the track demonstrating his ability to conquer r’n’b while simultaneously putting his well-honed vocals to work. “But, after five years, I feel like it is now the right time to leave the band”, he wrote.
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Zayn Malik arrives at a Grammys-related gala in Los Angeles in February. A year after Malik took his departure from the band, his debut solo single, “Pillowtalk” reached No. 1 in both the United Kingdom and the U.S. Unbelievably, the single charted higher than any One Direction song had in the U.S. Although striving is the last thing the album’s sound telegraphs-even when Malik sings about emotional and romantic desperation, he remains at a calm remove, seldom rising above a simmer across the whole record.
Zayn said: ‘I’m still probably the closest to Liam.
The lyrics, “Jab tak is mohabbat ke phool na khilay / Tab tak is dill ko sukoon na miley”, roughly translated via The New York Times, mean, “Until the flower of this love has blossomed / This heart won’t be at peace”.
There’s no doubt that the Los Angeles-based Malik has looked to USA influences for Mind of Mine’s style. One Direction may have stifled Zayn creatively, but in the long run they gave him something invaluable to his free-spirited image: A safe and happy home from which to flee. A few elements of Mind of Mine strain for “edgy” but just come off as goofy and awkward: the Myspace-bio stylization of the track listing (“BeFoUr”, “tRuTh”, “BoRdErsZ”), the dizzying and overly self-serious video for “Pillowtalk”.
Instances of former teen idols taking confident steps into the pop spotlight are rare, but worth celebrating – and they often involve the channeling of R&B in its many forms.
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Zayn announced the news on Twitter at 3:40 am with the hashtag #mindofmine and a photo of the album cover, which pictures him looking nothing short of adorable as a child.
