Dusk Till Dawn

"Doin' it all night, all summer"
—Zara Larsson

"Dusk Till Dawn" is a song by British singer Zayn featuring Australian singer-songwriter Sia, which was released worldwide as the lead single from his second studio album, Icarus Falls, on 7 September 2017.

Background

The accompanying music video was released on the same day. It features Zayn and British-American actress Jemima Kirke.^[5] The song is also featured in the official trailer for the film The Mountain Between Us. Commercially, the single peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart, topped the charts in seven countries and peaked within the top ten of the charts in more than twenty countries, including Australia, Canada, France and Germany.

Composition

"Dusk Till Dawn" is a pop power ballad. Fact described the song as "stadium ballad" and further saying that "instead of running away from his pop roots [Zayn] seems to be relaxing and re-embracing those pop beginnings".

In speaking about the song, Zayn said, "That's where I started and that's obviously still in there. I still like pop music, but it's about putting my own spin on it, making it me."

The song is in the key of B minor with a tempo of 180 beats per minute. The meter is common time. The harmonic progression is Bm7–G–D–F♯m7/C♯–Bm7–G–D–A/C♯. The vocals span two octaves, from D₃ to D₅.

Critical reception

Hugh McIntyre from Forbes said the song is as "epic as it needed to be considering the two powerhouses attached." He noted that it "features powerful vocals, high notes left and right and a vocal hook that is somehow impossible to sing along to, while still being memorable." McIntyre also predicted it could be a potential Grammy Award nominee for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance; the song's producer Greg Kurstin won Producer of the Year at the 2018 Grammy Awards for his work on "Dusk till Dawn" along with several other songs.

Michael Cragg of The Guardian chose the song as "track of the week" and described it as "a towering piece of perfect pop." Elias Leight from Rolling Stone described the song as "throbbing ballad" and said that the duet "leans close to her [Sia's] trademark style", further stating that "Sia dials back her potent voice to harmonize better with Malik; she often handles the low end, while his singing flutters around in the falsetto range." MTV called it a "massive, cinematic duet" and concluded that it "starts off as a gorgeous, romantic mid-tempo and builds to a thrashing sing-along chorus that will echo around stadiums in no time."

Jordan Sargent, writing for Spin, said "Dusk Till Dawn" was "a step backwards" from Zayn's previous single, "Still Got Time", and further commented that the collaboration with Sia was "fairly predictable and mostly uninteresting".

Music video

Synopsis

Directed by Marc Webb, the accompanying music video for "Dusk Till Dawn" premiered on YouTube on 7 September 2017, receiving over 9.77 million views in its first day. It is Webb's first music video in seven years. The music video finds Zayn on the run from two different groups, after he makes a sly hand-off with his mysterious accomplice played by actress Jemima Kirke. Soon after a brief confrontation Zayn outwits the law and escapes a pair of gangsters in an intense car chase and eventually lures both parties in a trap and drives off into the sunset with Kirke.

The video was inspired by movies Casino and Goodfellas. According to Zayn, "It's definitely a nod to a particular era of music videos. The early '90s, around that period, people really tried to make these epic, intense movies for their videos, Michael Jackson being a great example of that. I wanted to come back and give my fans something along those lines rather than just some blasé video."

Reception

Rolling Stone's Elias Leight said that "Jemima Kirke and Zayn Malik are a modern day Bonnie and Clyde in the new clip" for Zayn's song. MTV's contributor praised the dramatic visuals and wrote "Dusk Till Dawn video is a huge step up from his previous music videos and we can’t help but wonder if this is only Part One of the story." Al Horner from Fact described the video as "a Chinatown heist mini-movie crammed into five action-packed minutes." As of August 2020, the music video has over 1 billion views on YouTube.

Official remix audio

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Trivia

• Although Sia does not appear in this video, she appears in an alternative video for the 2008 song also called "Dusk Till Dawn", by New Zealand singer Ladyhawke. This is her only contribution to said song.

Lyrics