Indian singer-songwriter Armaan Malik sets out to be the first Indian artist to break into the global pop market. He has solidly established his place in the South Asian music industry with over a billion global streams.

By the age of 24 he’s already performed over 200 live shows and sung more than 150 songs in nearly a dozen languages. It’s been his lifelong dream to write and sing English music, “this music is inside of me, it’s my DNA,” says Armaaan. Coming from a renowned Bollywood musical family Malik continues his musical family legacy. Throughout his adolescence he knew English music was his true passion and listened to artists like Frank Sinatra, John Mayer and Bruno Mars to name a few. 

What intrigued me about this release is how the blend of Armaan Malik’s originality would be transferred into a mainstream pop song. Well, the answer is quite simply, very well. With the main groove of the song as a very westernised pop melody, with clear instrumentation and a beat that you could hear Justin Beiber singing over. However there is a twist, every now and then you are hit with a truly Eastern style, particularly with the clever backing vocals that follow a melody that is very clearly of Indian origin, but in this context creates a sound like no other. The production to the whole of ‘Control’ is very very classy. Malik has a great vocal presence and delivers a melody and style that ticks every box that a young pop singer needs to. With a bass moving from a smooth root note to a slap rhythm and a subtle clean guitar playing tight run downs that accompany a hard hitting beat I cannot see pop fans disliking this track at all. The melody is sound with a catchy line to sing along too, and music fans will appreciate the overall complexity of the lyric and the class of the delivery. 

This is a great first entry into this genre of music and the experience in so many other disciplines clearly shows through. The overall production and composition make this song one to watch out for, but also remember the name, I think you’ll hear quite a bit about Armaan Malik in the coming weeks, months and years.

 Pop 

Author: Phil Arnold

Phil Arnold is a musician, producer and music reviewer from Devon, in the South West of England. Whilst not writing music reviews, Phil also writes and records under the name of Ugbrooke.