By Jannet Rodriguez
Music Columnist
PILLOWTALK is Zayn Malik’s first single as a solo artist since he left the very popular boy band, One Direction. Zayn claimed that he left the band to be a “normal 22 year old”, of course many fans were devastated. In July of 2015, Zayn announced that he would be continuing his career as a solo artist. Zayn is releasing his music as ZAYN.
Fans went months without music, and were all very excited to see what Zayn would release.
PILLOWTALK is very different than the image One Direction had created for themselves. The fans did not get One Direction, they got Zayn, the Bradford Bad Boy.
The song is very R&B, the lyrics are more sexual than anything Malik released with his former band, and the music video incorporates art. Zayn’s vocals are soft and melodic, they capture you from start to finish. The lyric that really interested me were, “I’m seeing the pain, seeing the pleasure. Nobody but you, ‘body but me, ‘body but us, bodies together”.
The video, which you can watch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_3d6GntKbk, brings art and sex into a whole new form. Zayn was able to talk about it without sexualizing women. He used art like paintings, and flowers to compare the women, while still making the video about what the song is about. His girlfriend, model, Gigi Hadid played his love interest in the video.
Overall, the song lived up to my expectations and it was better than good. Zayn will continue to bring us R&B masterpieces when his album, “Mind of Mine” drops on March 25,2016, also that day marks a year since he left One Direction.
