Niall Horan

One Liner: One of the One Direction guys making really good pop rock tunes

Wikipedia Genre: Soft rock, pop, folk-pop, pop rock

Home: Mullingar, Westmeath, Ireland

Poster Position: Level 2 (3) 
Both Weekends.
Sunday.

Thoughts:  Hey, another One Direction guy!  I had no clue when I started listening, but after a few songs I literally was like "this is kind of like a lesser Harry Styles or something," and then two seconds of research reveal that this was one of the other dudes in that band.  "What Makes You Beautiful" and "Best Song Ever" were dance-party bangers in my house with my little girls.  Around 2016, the band was coming apart, and by 2017, each of the members had released solo stuff.  Seems now they are out on their own.

My man is Irish, and back in his 1D days, he had ridiculously large blond hair.  Like, a massive coif of Bieber hair that was then gelled to hell and swooped up over his head.  It actually made me laugh out loud when I just saw it.  But now, he looks much more like he sounds, an earnest Irish singer/songwriter with boyish good looks and a great set of pipes.  He taught himself to play guitar with the help of YouTube tutorials.  I should do that [he thinks for the three-hundredth time].  Recently, he has been acting as a coach on The Voice.  I've never watched the show, so I don't really know what that means, but I hope he screams in a singer's face while they try to navigate a bad cover of Fleetwood Mac.

Three albums so far - 2017's Flicker, 2020's Heartbreak Weather, and 2023's The Show just released.  Top streamers are for sure from that initial album - you can tell that fans were still in on him big time back then.  "Slow Hands" is the top dog with 838 million streams, but there are five songs on there with more than 100 million, and another with 775 million.  So, he was definitely still on top of the world.

Funny to think that there were judges on that X Factor show back in the day who were like, this dude isn't good enough, so he got thrown into the consolation prize boy band of other losers, and now those guys are one of the most successful boy bands ever, and have spawned multiple megastars afterwards.  Just fascinating the way the world works sometimes.  But that is a nice tune.

His second disc was not as well-streamed, with the top track topping out at 314 million.  "Nice to Meet Ya" is that tune, beating out "Black and White" and "Put a Little Love On Me" as the only track with more than 300 million.

Danceable, jumping tune.  Would definitely be fun to jam out to in person.  "Put a Little Love On Me" is also a lovely little tune.  Listen to the opening track on that newer album, the title song, if you want to hear what I am talking about with the Harry Styles comparisons.  Got that swanky 70's guitar swagger and a danceable beat that feels like something that could easily be on a Styles disc.  I really like it, and I think this whole album is better than the first one.

Two singles for the new disc - "Heaven" and "Meltdown" - and they are also solid tunes.  In all honesty, I have really enjoyed listening to all of these tunes - with the exception of the EDM remixes that are sprinkled throughout his Spotify.  So far, "Heaven" is the streaming winner with 147.5 million spins.

That bassline is groovy (although, and I know this is annoying, it reminds me of the sound of the warbling bassline sound at the start of Style's "Grapejuice").  I would never have said this beforehand, that I might want to go see a One Direction solo artist who was not Styles, but I'd expect this to be a really good show.