This past week, the world was blessed with some great new music. Some came as a surprise while others have been teasing us while we waited for their release. Here are a few albums and a song that were released.
Charlie Puth – Nine Track Mind: Busting into the music scene in 2015 with his “See You Again” collaboration with Wiz Khalifa and releasing his first EP titled Some Type of Love, Charlie Puth has now become a worldwide sensation with an insane falsetto vocal talent.
Fast forward to 2016, Puth just released his debut studio album called Nine Track Mind. This soulful album was originally supposed to be released in November 2015 but more song ideas came about and he wanted to add more. The 12-track album contains some songs from his EP as well as new songs and features a few collaborations with Megan Trainor, Selena Gomez, and Shy Carter. His duet with Megan Trainor, “Marvin Gaye”, was the first single released from the album back in 2015.
This Motown sounding tune has done pretty good on the charts and is being played on the radio now more than ever. The two performed the song on the American Music Awards and it quickly caused a frenzy with the sparks that flew on stage between the two (of course they denied that there was something going on between them). The second single, “One Call Away” is also making its way around the radio and is currently No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The soon-to-be third single with Selena Gomez, “We Don’t Talk Anymore”, generated buzz when Puth posted an Instagram video of the two of them jamming out to part of the song. The album has received great reviews thus far. The album contains soulful and pop songs that would please anyone. Puth announced a tour not too long ago and it sold out in just one day. The future seems to be very bright for this YouTube star turned singer-songwriter and producer.
Rihanna – ANTI: Last Wednesday morning, people were
gifted a song from Rihanna and Drake called “Work”. There had been much speculation from many thinking that she was going to be dropping her album soon and to our surprise, things took a different turn.
Hours later, the album leaked on Jay-Z’s TIDAL and people were confused as ever as to what was going on. Many acted quickly by getting the songs illegally before it was taken down only to be released again at midnight on Thursday. During the time that it was leaked, people were able to view the track list and as stated before, get the music. People from TIDAL and Rihanna’s camp of course did not release a statement but one thing that is for sure, this was not a publicity stunt; it did really leak.
According to Glass John, the producer of the album, he told Billboard that “The album would’ve been out on Christmas if Travis hadn’t convinced Rihanna that (it) wasn’t good enough”. Travis Scott, Rihanna’s alleged boyfriend, did not think that the album was ready yet and wanted to come up with a better song than “Kiss It Better”, which is on the album and John thought was a great song. This is Rihanna’s eighth album and is her first since Unapologetic, which was released back in 2012.
The album is pretty diverse compared to albums that she has released in the past. The songs can find their place anywhere on the radio since some contain things like a piano ballad, electric guitars, and high and low-end songs that could even end up on hip-hop stations. Leading up to the surprise release, Rihanna partnered with Samsung for a promotional campaign and numerous commercials were released. She even teased the world with a Twitter photo of her listening to the album wearing $9,000 gold Dolce & Gabbana headphones and tiara encrusted with Swarovski crystals and pearls. The album has its good and bad songs but overall, it’s worth a listen.
ZAYN: “Pillowtalk” – The highly anticipated single from former 
One Direction boy bander Zayn Malik (now ZAYN) was released on Friday and people are freaking out! “Pillowtalk” is his debut single and it quickly shot to No. 1 becoming Twitter’s most shared and discussed track according to Billboard.
The song was also accompanied by a music video featuring Zayn’s girlfriend model Gigi Hadid, who seems to making her rounds in the music video world. She directed her ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas’s band, DNCE, music video for “Cake by the Ocean”, she was also in her other ex-boyfriend Cody Simpson’s music video for “Surfboard”, and more notably, being apart of Taylor Swift’s squad in “Bad Blood”. Enough about her, let’s return to Zayn.
The music video features just the two of them and it is very interesting video to say the least. It is very colorful, almost kaleidoscope like with the shapes and formations. The song is slow and rhythmic and his vocals and sound are a far cry from his One Direction days. In some way, his voice sounds a little like Chris Brown. Of course, not exactly like Brown but Malik has said before that he always liked R&B and Brown is one of his influences.
He also has not been shy talking about his time with One Direction saying things like “I wasn’t happy” and “The music was generic”. Zayn has also had his fair share of drama including a Twitter war with Naughty Boy and even former bandmate Louie Tomlinson. Malik has picked a release date for his first solo album, which is set to come out on the one-year anniversary of when he announced he was leaving One Direction (cue the many sobbing girls around the world), March 25.
The album will be titled Mind of Mine and in an interview with Beats 1, he revealed that he wrote about “46, 47” songs for the album. It surely will be interesting to see how his new career as a solo artist will play out.
These new music releases have gotten a lot of exposure and it is evident that all of them have done well sale wise due to their popularity. From singer-songwriter to versatile songstress to bad boy solo artist, there’s something for everyone to enjoy. Overall, all of them are great and worth listening to.
Elizabeth Granato
Features Editor