Fans got a chance to know Niall Horan all over again on Oct. 4. The 26-year-old ex-One Direction member dropped the first song off his second studio album, “Nice To Meet Ya,” and this isn’t “Slow Hands.” Instead of slow acoustics and Niall’s soulful serenading that fans have come to know him by, he let his playful side come out to play! Niall sings about a new crush against the energetic background of electrical guitars, reminding us of our aughts playlists filled with indie rock bands like The Strokes. Yeah, we’d never expect to associate the 1D alum with Julian Casablancas, either. In the music video, that mysterious crush happens to be the gorgeous Australian model Georgia Gibbs, 24!
In the song, Niall seemingly mirrors The Doors’s “Hello, I Love You” by falling for a stranger – Niall sings “Nice to meet ya, what’s your name?” after professing “I got love for you.” Similarly, the late Jim Morrison sang, “Hello. I love you. Won’t you tell me your name?” However, that’s where similarities between Niall and the classic rock radio staple end. The former 1D singer’s song is really about locking down an elusive love, one that will likely disappear when the night is over.
“I like the way you talk, I like the things you wear / I want your number tattooed on my arm in ink, I swear / ‘Cause when the morning comes, I know you won’t be there / Every time I turn around, you disappear,” sings Niall, according to Genius. “One minute, you’re there, the next one, you’re gone / Been waiting for you all night, so come on/ You know what I need, you know what I want / You know what I need now, you know what I need now.” Fans were also given a peek at the sexiness of the song when Niall stripped down to next-to-nothing when filming the video with his video co-star, Georgia.
“Nice To Meet Ya” is Niall’s first single since collaborating with Maren Morris on 2018’s “Seeing Blind.” The song is the first track off his upcoming sophomore album, expected sometime before the end of 2019. Here’s hoping Niall checks with a lawyer before releasing the artwork to this hypothetical album, because he got in some hot water when sharing the artwork for “Nice To Meet Ya.” Gang Of Youths, an Australian indie rock group best known for their 2017 single “Let Me Down Easy,” called out Niall, insinuating that his artwork was very similar to that of their album, Say Yes To Life.
They posted a side-by-side to their Instagram Stories, according to Metro, and they are similar: black and white photo; black text on a white frame background; bold font. While Gang Of Youths hardly invented black text on white (Hello Johnn Cash’s American IV: The Man Comes Around and practically any post-punk release in the 1980s), the monochromatic art style has been the band’s trademark. They used a similar design for Go Farther In Lightness and for The Heart Is A Muscle.
Niall has hinted that his upcoming album, the first since 2017’s Flicker, will include a track that delves into serious heartbreak after his split from Hailee Steinfeld in late 2018. The track that spills the tea on this split is reportedly called “Put A Little Love On Me.” No word on when fans will get a chance to “meet” this track.
