Zayn Malik didn’t waste time making 2021 a great year for his fans. A mere day after the 27-year-old singer announced he would release his third album, Nobody Is Listening, on Jan. 15, Zayn gave fans a taste of what they could expect in “Vibez,” an ideal track to play if you and that special someone are looking to take a break from your usual quarantine routine and get a little…frisky.
“Vibez” is straight-up sexiness, frankly put. The One Direction alum showcases his mastery of sultry R&B pop once again in this track, taking us back to the day he first showed fans this talent with “Pillowtalk” exactly five years ago. We can imagine Zayn and Gigi Hadid doing a whole lot of pillow talking with this new song playing in the background!
Zayn announced “Vibez” on Thursday (Jan. 7) with a video posted to his Twitter and Instagram stories. In the preview, a spotlight illuminated a red curtain on a stage in front of an empty theatre. Despite the snippet not having any discernable singing, the lyrics appeared on Genius soon afterward. The song is, unsurprisingly, about sex, how the singer has been “waiting all night to get closer / And you already know I got it for ya.” He pleads “You and me here in this room / Imagining things we could do / Won’t tell no lies, no lies to you / I need you here, I need you here.”
“Don’t keep me waiting/ I’ve been waiting all night to get closer/ And you already know I got it for ya,” the song’s chorus goes. “You know the vibes, know the vibes, put it on ya/ If it movin’ too fast, we go slower/ Baby, lose it from me, mediocre/ You know the vibes, know the vibes.”
“Vibez” is the second single off of Zayn’s third album, Nobody Is Listening, the follow-up to his 2018 sophomore release, the 27-track double LP Icarus Falls. The project arrived to mixed reviews, with NME giving it 4/5 stars (“Regardless of their tone, each song is perfectly crafted”) while Consequence Of Sound gave it a C+ (“Icarus Falls repeatedly interrupts its own narrative with dull, boring, and uninspired love songs that have nothing to do with the theme.”) It currently stands at 70 on Metacritic, which still make sit one of the better reviewed solo albums by a former One Direction member.
Zayn dropped “Better,” which will also be on Nobody Is Listening, back in September 2020. At the time, Zayn was basking in the first days of fatherhood. “Better” dropped two days after Zayn announced that Gigi had given birth to their first child together. “Our baby girl is here, healthy & beautiful,” Zayn tweeted on Sept. 23. “To try put into words how I am feeling right now would be an impossible task. The love I feel for this tiny human is beyond my understanding. Grateful to know her, proud to call her mine, [and] thankful for the life we will have together.” Gigi later clarified that their child had arrived that previous “weekend” and that she had already “changed our world.”
