Free Spirit – Khalid

Harry

It’s fair to say I had the square root of no knowledge about Khalid going into this album. Early on I began to believe this album might be able to deliver a few uplifting and expansive synth pop bangers. “Catchy songs with tasty production”, I thought “What more could I ask for!?” However, Khalid doesn’t deliver a banger or catchy song after the optimistic opening tunes. The majority of the songs are middle of the road, straight boring and completely unexperimental. The rest are alright I guess. ______ of forging his own sound, Khalid has created an album full of focus-group tested snoozers. Ironically he is probably as much of a free spirit as an office worker in the risk department of Tesco Bank. The worst thing is I’ll probably listen to it a fair bit this summer anyway.

56/100

Zach

I first heard of Khalid when he burst onto the scene with the stunning debut single ‘Location’. Since then, I have been eagerly following his progression into one of the most well respected artists in modern pop. This was the real test, the dreaded ‘sophomore album’ that can make or break so many artists. Sadly, I think this is a disappointing effort. Many of the songs are enjoyable, however it is not nearly as characterful as his first. It feels very commercial, very polished with no emotion. In the first album, Khalid’s voice stole the show and it was the star, however it fades into the mix of some rather distracting production in this second effort. Furthermore the album is far too long, and pop albums of this sort of genre get so boring after 57 minutes. I feel bad for Khalid, he is a great talent that has clearly been swept up by commercial record labels and therefore has lost a sense of who he is and what makes him great. I hope he rediscovers it in the future.

Fave Tracks: Bad Luck, Talk

72/100