Niall Horan: Flicker [CAPITOL/EMI]

Why you'll love it

Flicker is the full original album, the record that took Horan out of One Direction and into soft-rock songwriting. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and "Slow Hands" reached No. 11 on the Hot 100.

This edition

• Original 10-track album
• Capitol Records edition

About the album

Every boy band member eventually picks up a guitar and says something about the 1970s. Niall Horan actually meant it. He signed to Capitol in 2016, said he'd been reaching for Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles all along, and described what he was making as a folk-with-pop feel, finger-picked rather than choreographed.

"This Town" came first, a gentle acoustic ballad that went top ten in the UK. "Slow Hands" swaps the strumming for a fat, warm groove, "On the Loose" and "Too Much to Ask" followed it to radio, and Horan rang Maren Morris to sing with him on "Seeing Blind." He told Zane Lowe the title track meant the most to him, and that Damien Rice's O shaped both "Flicker" and "Paper Houses." Before the album even came out, he tried several of the songs on a live crowd at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London.

Rolling Stone named it one of the albums of the year. Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles never did get round to making a record together; this is a fair guess at how it might have gone.

Also at Kops: more Niall Horan on vinyl · browse Pop

Tracklist

Listen

On Capitol (cat# B002746601), the 2017 album.