Nine Track Mind is the debut studio album by American singer Charlie Puth. It was released on January 29, 2016, by Artist Partner Group and Atlantic Records, after being scheduled to be released on November 6, 2015. The album's lead single, "Marvin Gaye", which features Meghan Trainor, was originally released as "Some Type of Love's" only single on February 10, 2015, and peaked at number 21 on the BillboardHot 100 and topped the charts in various countries including France, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The album's second single, "One Call Away", was released on August 20, 2015, reaching as high as number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. On May 24, 2016, Puth released the third and final single "We Don't Talk Anymore", featuring Selena Gomez, with it having peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. A music video for "Dangerously" was released on November 2, 2016. The finalized track listing was revealed on December 11, 2015. The final track listing removed the tracks "Know Your Name" and "Hard" and replaced them with "Dangerously" and "We Don't Talk Anymore". "I Won't Tell a Soul" was also due for inclusion on the Japanese edition, but was subsequently removed. Puth embarked on his Nine Track Mind Tour in March 2016. A deluxe edition, containing three new songs, was released on November 11, 2016. Upon release, Nine Track Mind was a commercial success, peaking at number 6 on the Billboard 200. However, the album received negative reviews from critics, who called its production bland, criticised the writing and Puth's overall performance. Puth himself confessed that he was disappointed at how the album turned out.
Singles and videos
"Marvin Gaye", which features American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor, was released on February 10, 2015, as the first single from the album. "One Call Away" was announced by Puth as the second single from the album on August 4, 2015, and was released along with the pre-order of the album on August 20, 2015. On May 11, 2016, Puth announced "We Don't Talk Anymore" as the third single from the album. Selena Gomez provides vocals for the song. It impacted US contemporary hit radio on May 24, 2016. Dangerously was sent to Italian radios as the fourth and final single from the album on December 2, 2016. A music video for the song was released on November 2, 2016. A music video was released on February 19, 2016, to remix version of "Suffer", directed by Austin Starrett Winchell.
Critical reception
Nine Track Mind received negative reviews from music critics, who were critical of the album's writing, production, and Puth's overall performance. On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, the album gained an average score of 37, based on 7 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews," making it the 15th worst critic-reviewed album on the website. The Guardian's Rachel Aroesti gave Nine Track Mind three out of five stars, saying, "the standard of his songwriting is consistently high, and his central theme — romantic obsession that verges on the masochistic — makes for a record that softly burns." In a negative review for Pitchfork, Jia Tolentino — recognizing Puth's talent and "considerable abilities" — wrote that "the album's emotional range covers the spectrum from light longing to light infatuation, contributing to the overall sense that Nine Track Mind is aimed exclusively at hairlessness: children, prepubescents, the discomfitingly waxed."
