Early last year, the world mourned the loss of its five-piece One Direction when Zayn Malik announced his departure from the group. Since that announcement, Zayn has mostly been silent, speaking up only in sparse tweets and rare interviews. Until now. Today, he released the video for his first song as a true solo artist, “Pillowtalk.” And it ain’t half bad.
The video finds Zayn in close embrace with his (he swears!) platonic buddy Gigi Hadid, as various CGI splashes and nearly-nude women appear on the screen. It’s kind of like the opening of a James Bond film in that way, then.
Wait — is Zayn saying a vagina is kind of like a flower? Whoa.
Anyway, in the song itself Zayn sing-talks about lovin’ wakin’ up next to a nameless woman, calling their love a “paradise” and also a “war zone.” It’s a dichotomy — the good and the bad of love — already mastered in the mainstream by The Weeknd, but Zayn’s take is, of course, less hedonistic. He does say the word “fuck,” though, because, you know, he is an adult now, no longer a member of a boyband.
Watch the video below, buy it on iTunes, shout about it on Twitter, experience the zeitgeist. His debut album, Mind of Mine, should be out sometime soon, though who knows when. Maybe tonight! But probably not.