When boy band favorite Zayn Malik announced that he was leaving One Direction to start a solo career, the Internet erupted with the expected volume of sobs—but also with many incredulous raised brows. The X-Factor-manufactured brand was the reason Zayn became a household name in the first place. Could he hold his own without his four other crooners-in-crime?
A year later, Malik has dropped his debut solo album, Mind of Mine, and the reviews are pretty good. The singer is trying to prove that he has grown up from his bubble gum boy band days and has something deeper and less contrived to offer. Fortunately, much of his fan base agrees, as his album’s first single “PILLOWTALK” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, according to Billboard.
So has Malik managed to not only break away but find more success on his own? PrettyFamous crunched the numbers to find out. Using streaming data from YouTube, the entertainment data site measured the total plays of “PILLOWTALK,” its plays last week and plays this week against One Direction’s most recent single, “History,” to see which single received the most attention.
“PILLOWTALK” was played on YouTube more than 31.5 million times last week and 22.7 million this week — 257,608,198 plays overall since its Jan. 29 release. One Direction’s “History” has only garnered 124,848,743 YouTube plays since its debut last November. Zayn’s single has the advantage of being the singer’s first since he broke ties with the band, so its many plays can be attributed to its novelty. But it seems that even after initially piquing the public’s interest, the single held enough merit on its own to be played for months after the fact.
The numbers point to the possibility that Zayn’s bold career move may have paid off after all. Only time will tell if he has the chops to sustain his success as he goes in this new direction.
Is Zayn Malik Heading in the Right Direction? (CHART)
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