“Meltdown” by Niall Horan, Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Pop is having an incredible year. Starting out with Sam Smith's genre- (and gender) blending Gloria to this month's yacht-rock inspired The Album by Jonas Brothers, what I once would consider guilty pleasures I would argue now rival the musical staples of my hipster past. The year isn't even half over, and I still haven't digested many of the albums that have come out. But if the two singles, "Heaven" and "Meltdown," Niall Horan released before his rumored June release of The Show have any bearing on the upcoming album, I'll be adding this to my list of albums that completely blindsided me with awesomeness. 

WHEN IT ALL MELTS DOWN, I'LL BE THERE. These days, I've been listening to Spotify's curated playlists at work. "Meltdown" is a song that has been added to several of the new hits playlists, so I started hearing it quite often. I thought the song was catchy, but it initially got lost with the other tons of songs I could never remember. But little by little, I started to enjoy the campfire-like chorus and the fun production sounds. And it made me start thinking about Fine Line by Harry Styles, particularly "Golden," the album's opening track. I didn't know who Niall Horan was. His music appeared in several playlists alongside Taylor Swift and other pop superstars, and because I haven't been a faithful pop listener, I figured that the singer's music had just missed me somehow. Part of my process for determining my daily song is listening to music, systematically (in a way that makes sense to me) going through my library, and when I get up from my desk, I see if I'm humming a song. If the song lasts until I return to my desk, I'll stop listening to whatever playlist I'm listening to and find the album containing the ear worm. If the song is so infectious, I start listening to the artist's back catalog. 

LOSIN' YOUR MIND  IN THE MIRROR. So, I clicked on Niall Horan's Spotify page and listened to the latest singles and their acoustic counterparts. I started scrolling down, slightly distracted by his photos and how incredibly handsome he is. Then I read his short Spotify biography, and I felt so dumb. Along with Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Thomlinson, and Zayn Malik, Niall Horan was a One Direction member. It's the kind of thing I can live with not knowing if I hadn't been writing about music for over two years. But, to be fair, Harry Styles' critical acclaim and now consistent charting on Billboard's Hot 100 was the only reason that One Direction came on my radar. Zayn's music was often played in the gym, so I was aware of him as an artist even if I wasn't listening to his music. I couldn't name a Liam Payne song, but I recognized his name if I heard it. Louis Thomlinson has the lowest streams of all One Direction members. Perhaps because of his new music, Horan has the second-highest number of streams after Harry Styles and just above Zayn. Horan, however, has yet to have a Billboard Top 10 hit, so that could be the reason why he slipped under my radar. "Heaven" petered out at number 62. Will "Meltdown" be Horan's song of the summer?



lyric video:
Live performance in Tokyo (on The Voice):
Acoustic version:






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