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By Joe Cingrana
Niall Horan just dropped his debut album Flicker on October 20. The first time solo artist sat down with Fresh 102.7’s morning team Karen & Jeffrey in New York City to discuss the release and the possible GRAMMY nominations it could have.
Horan admits it took over a year to write and record Flicker, and now that it’s available for fans around the world to hear, the former One Directioner says he’s feeling a real sense of accomplishment.
Related: Niall Horan on Mom Being His Biggest Fan
“I’m pretty excited about it, to be honest,” Horan admits. “I’ve obviously spent a lot of time on these songs, so to have them out to the world and do well and watch them climb the charts this week has been a nice sense of achievement.”
Fans were treated to a few songs off the album prior to its release; “Slow Hands” was even performed on Ellen (twice) and “Flicker” was stripped down into an acoustic clip on release day — while the tracks “This Town” and “Too Much To Ask” have already received proper video treatments.
“Mirrors” is another of the stand out tracks on Flicker. Its lyrics focus on the struggles young girls and women go through when dealing with body image issues and their own perceptions of attractiveness. Horan says sometimes his lyrics are personal and sometimes they come from his imagination — but with “Mirrors” it was different, this time it came from observing a girl at a café.
“I had this idea, obviously I see a lot of stuff online and I know girls in general,” he explains about the song. “I was in Pret [a Manger] one day in town and I was looking at my phone and I had seen a girl in the corner who I thought looked a little bit upset or whatever, [was] on her own and looked a little bit lonely. And the waiter came over and made her laugh out loud and her laugh made me look over.”
“I wrote that down on my phone and picked up the story a few months later and wrote a song about it.”
For Horan, the album’s title track “Flicker” is the one which hits him the most, emotionally.
“[It’s] probably the most personal one to me and it was a big moment in the making of the album.” He continues, “The whole timing of that song and when I recorded it kind of stood out to me. It’s just one of those songs that even when I’m singing it I close my eyes — you know when you’re listening to music at night lying in bed? I kind of get into that thing when I’m performing it. It’s one of those songs where the room just goes… you could literally hear a cotton bud drop if you wanted to. It gets me every time.”
Looking forward, Horan is excited about the speculation that he could be among this year’s GRAMMY nominations. “I’d rip someone’s arm off for that,” he joked.
“Just to be nominated would be amazing,” the singer commented. “I’ve spent so many years watching it. It comes with all the prestige that everyone thinks it does. That would amazing, a far cry but we’ll see what happens.”
