Zayn's Been Teasing Some Seriously Romantic Music

For most of 2018 for now, Zayn's Instagram page has essentially been his own creative playground. Last month, the 25-year-old started sharing poems (sorry, zoems) and acoustic song fragments that sounded raw and new, far removed from the sound of music that ends up on official releases.


Zayn's continued this well into February also, Tumblr-izing his IG page and distributing even more glimpses into his method of creating (or at least singing). In the morning hours of Tuesday (February 20), Zayn posted three new piano-centric teases of his song "sHe" where his vocals are distant yet powerful.


Unlike the slo-mo groove-heavy version that ended up on 2016's Mind of Mine, this "sHe" is intimate and forlorn, with looser inflections and more room for Zayn's voice to take space.


While this isn't, case in point, a tease of any new music, it might would be a compass pointing in the direction Zayn is trekking for his second album. Maybe as an alternative opposed to electro-kissed downtempo, Z2 will explore darker and more romantic sonic territory inspired by Frank Ocean. Or perhaps not. Maybe it'll be a pop record right after all.


Whatever the album ends up sounding like, it's cool that Zayn seems liberated to share his path there on social media. Also often right now, any time an artist "teases" something new, it's all piece of a grander rollout plan for a new era or image. These breadcrumbs left here, on his Instagram, seem genuinely novel and without much of an agenda behind Zayn messing around and figuring stuff out. We'll visualize where they lead.