The problem is, Strip That Down is even less believable – partially because Zayn has been candid about his partying and personal turbulence (where Liam is now a father) and because Zayn only ever dissed 1D in interviews, not in his actual music. I mean, you can see what Liam wanted to do: he wanted to grow up musically, borrowing from the gospel of Zayn by simultaneously throwing shade at One Direction while singing about sex and parties. What will be interesting is whether he reinvents himself similarly as his career continues – dance moves and all. Like Jagger, the singer sings primarily about women, his complicated relationship with them, and the experiences that come with being a young man. No two songs are the same, nor are two tempos. Which is something Styles seems to have emulated and recognized, from his stage presence (which he showed off on James Corden’s Late Late Show all week) to his sense of fashion to the way his album reads like a generous tribute to British rock. (Enter: Millennium.) But thanks to tracks including Carolina, Woman, and even Kiwi, the future Dunkirk star seems to have modelled his full-length debut after the expansive nature of Jagger and co – at least if you take into account how varied the Rolling Stones discography gets after leaping away from garage rock. With Harry, it’s a toss-up between Bowie and Jagger and even Robbie Williams – particularly when you consider the sweeping nature of Styles’ first single, Sign of the Times. Not that he can’t come back from that: having spent the past year opening up about his anxiety and keeping his head down, he could emerge for his sophomore effort as a grown-ass man, aware that the best artists are the sum of all parts – boy bands and all. So while Malik is a smart, talented, and multi-dimensional person, his debut lacked the authenticity that defines his fellow R&B artists. But where the Weeknd took years to earn mainstream recognition (and worked his way through the industry), Zayn’s fanbase was already built in – which is why his rejection of One Direction seemed particularly harsh. Which explains why he took the Abel Tesfaye road of singing about sex, drugs, and a combination of the two. Between interviews that saw Zayn slagging off the band and his aesthetic rebrand that saw him secure a collaboration with Donatella Versace, Malik seemed keen to distance himself from the artist he used to be in the most dramatic sense. Since he quit the band long before the boys called a hiatus, it’s not surprising that the singer’s debut (Mind of Mine, released in March 2016) seemed to dramatically strive to establish itself as the musical antithesis of One Direction.
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