YoA quarter-century of reality talent shows has taught us nothing except that success on them rarely guarantees lasting fame: Often, celebrity is fleeting and limited to the country of origin of the show.
A direction in which you may have guessed the outcome. Simon Cowell said he formed the band in “10 minutes” from individual contestants who failed to progress beyond the bootcamp stage of the 2010 UK X Factor; one of whom, Wolverhampton-born Liam Payne, was predicted to win the series by his initial. audition at one point: a cover of the old standard Cry Me A River. One Direction finished the series in second place, as you may have guessed; After all, the boy band's stock at the time was hopelessly low.
But things didn't work out that way as One Direction ended up being one of the definitive pop bands of their era, surpassing 70 million albums and becoming the first band in US Billboard chart history to see four albums in the top 10. At the most basic level, they were successful because they were talented, charismatic, good-looking, and most importantly, they seemed to put a little more effort into their singles. Their debut What Makes You Beautiful was tremendously catchy; It spoke to its female fans with a beautiful positivity and was rooted in powerpop with a bright sheen, rather than the standard ballad or pop-R&B approach of boy bands. “When we heard it, it wasn't what we expected…so it was a perfect fit,” Payne said.
It is clear that they are not going to appear in the pages of Kerang! In the magazine, they maintained a distinct rock edge to their sound: 2012's Live We're Young, The Clash's Should I Stay or Go. A television talent show is expected from the team. This must have pleased Payne, a fan of nu-metallers Linkin Park, who described the 2001 single In The End as one of his all-time favourites.
The sound is one of the ways Payne and Cove managed to reinvent the boyband, taking it from the middle-of-the-road, mummy-friendly vibe of Westlife and Boyzone to its teen-friendly natural. They sounded more characterful and irreverent than their immediate predecessors: Payne sang the female part of the song in a rich falsetto when they covered the Wheaties' Teenage Dirtback live. They also seemed a little more agentic than usual in their careers. From the beginning, Payne seemed particularly interested in establishing himself as a songwriter, forming a “little partnership” with his partner Louis Tomlinson: he wrote songs on all of One Direction's albums, and on 2014's Four, his name appeared in the credits of eight. of the album's 12 tracks, including the title track. Includes the single Steal My Girl.
But the breadth of their success was not enough to prevent them from suffering the usual boy band death: the departure of a disgruntled member. The band made a brief attempt to continue without Zayn Malik (Payne stepped in to cover Malik's high-pitched vocals on stage), but in 2016 the inevitable “indefinite hiatus” occurred. The band's breakup seemed to leave Payne unsure of what to do next. He continued producing house songs to a resoundingly positive response from a dubious dance magazine (“Surprisingly Good”). submitted a degree) toyed with the idea of becoming a full-time composer. He's attracted impressive high-profile collaborators to his solo career: Quavo of Migos, Pharrell Williams, Jay Balvin, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Ed Sheeran, Fred Again.
He also struggled with alcoholism and turmoil in his personal life. Their debut album, LP1, was released to mostly indifferent or negative reviews and was a commercial disappointment: it did not come out until three years after One Direction broke up, by which time momentum had dissipated. He's been discussing a sequel with “more creative control,” and it's heartbreaking that he hasn't had the chance to do so, or to return to reunite with his band One Direction in a reunion that once seemed inevitable.
