Release Date: May 25, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Island
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There are many ways to grow up in pop music: You can test out a new genre, change up your look or start singing about smoking weed. Transitioning your career from teen to adult is the true test of sustainability, and while Shawn Mendes is only 19 years old, his self-titled third LP has passed the test with flying colors. Over his past two albums, the Toronto native proved himself an affably charming, guitar-slinging foil to the deluge of often-forgettable, pop'n'B-leaning white male stars.
Shawn Mendes is the epitome of millennial success. This is a teenager who, aged 14, gained millions of fans over the course of only few months after he started posting short videos of himself covering songs on Vine (RIP) in 2013. The next year, he was signed to Island, and in 2015 (by which time he was basically an OAP, at 16), Shawn dropped his debut album 'Handwritten'.
If Shawn Mendes wasn't born and raised in the Toronto suburbs, he might've been tank-grown in an underground lab at a major label's behest. He's a genial, grounded young performer with a body "somewhere between fitness model and party trick"--John Mayer's words, not mine--and a deep passion for adult contemporary pop-rock. He takes hundreds of pictures with fans in a single sitting without batting an eye.
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