Rolling Stone confirmed the rumors that brooding Bollywood singer Zayn will release a mammoth 27-track album on December 12th. Zayn is naming his sophomore LP Icarus Falls, which is quite a good title that shows the one-time pop star has either developed an ironic sense of humor or a good amount of self-awareness.
The title, of course, refers to the greek myth about a boy who is given freedom by his father in the form of a pair of wax wings. However, once he gets the wings, the boy loses his mind thinking he can can do whatever he wants in the sky, only to fly too close to the sun which causes him to crash and burn.
Sounds a bit like a metaphor for Zayn’s career of late. After leaving behind the “prison” that his former boy band One Direction had become for him, Zayn scored a No. 1 album, Mind of Mine, and No. 1 single, “Pillowtalk.” But since then, it seems like Zayn convinced himself that he could just throw any old music on to Youtube and have people like it.
Unfortunately, they haven’t. In fact, almost none of Zayn’s solo or lead efforts have charted since Mind of Mine, let alone caused much buzz. So Zayn’s dreams of producing big budget videos and staging a world tour seem, for the moment, like they are off the table. But apparently what isn’t off the table is Zayn’s ability to collect up all those random tracks that he’s floated and try to bundle them up into something he calls an album.
Since almost all the tracks that would presumably go onto Icarus Falls have already been released on Youtube for free — and it appears that perhaps the last unreleased single, “Rainberry,” was just dropped by Zayn today — it is hard to see anyone but Zayn’s most fanatical fans having a reason to buy the album. But if slapping all these singles on to an album helps Zayn put the period behind him, then maybe that alone is something valuable.
It would be great to have Zayn put his at-times stunning falsetto to work again on some more worthwhile projects. Maybe he just needs to get the “Icarus” era out of his system once and for all.
For those interested, we have Zayn’s latest track, “Rainberry,” from his upcoming album below.
(Image source: Zayn Malik Instagram account)
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