Musical direction
MANILA, Philippines - These days, One Direction’s Live While We’re Young is almost as ubiquitous as generic Christmas carols at the malls.Yes, parts of it might sound familiar, particularly the opening riff cribbed from The Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go, or the bridge that sounds like the intro of Nicki Minaj’s Starships. But it’s only fair to say it sounds faintly familiar like any good Top 40 song should. After all, if there’s one thing that One Direction's mentor Simon Cowell is good at, it’s assembling the best pop songwriters and producers of the past decade and letting them refurbish and polish every possible beat, melody and hook for the boys’ next golden single. With a little bit of polishing and post-aughts boy band magic, the formula wonderfully works for the most successful X Factor graduates.
It’s highly probable that their second album “Take Me Home” will score the boys (Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Niall Horan, just in case you’re uninitiated) their second Billboard #1 album within the year. Their debut album “Up All Night” was officially released in the UK in 2010 but was just released March this year in the US. It went straight to #1 during its first week. In terms of sales, there’s no denying that “Take Me Home” will do even better than its predecessor. But musically, the sophomore album poses a challenge for the boys and their army of writers and producers. How far can they really take the words “cheeky,” “fun” and “peppy” until it’s drained out of essence? Not that far really, but they do try their best to make each song ripe for the picking. Overall, “Take Me Home” is a scattershot boy band mix, hampered by Top 40 demands, but it’s never dull or deathly boring; it has enough charm and caffeine to make it one of the strongest pop albums of the year.
Pop canons
Heading the pack of “Take Me Home”’s songwriters are Swedish pop pantheons Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub, and American producer Savan Kotecha, three of the people behind the biggest pop hits of the last decade. It’s wise that they’ve taken One Direction’s sound into a more familiar route instead of exploring other musical avenues that the boys might be good at. “Take Me Home” sticks to slick beats, rock-out riffs and insanely catchy choruses that give the word “hook” a good name. Kiss You, easily the next biggest single of the album, thrums like a juiced-up bunny running on Red Bull and Snickers bars, complete with the “yeah yeah yeahs,” “na na nas” and syllabic turn-ons. There’s Heart Attack, which effectively uses the sonic equivalent of Louis’s on-stage humping. When things slow down, particularly in the two Ed Sheeran-penned tracks Little Things and Over Again, the boys show their X Factor-trained harmonizing to weepy, underwear-melting effects.
Feeding sexual appetites
Come to think of it, each track on “Take Me Home” should be enough to inspire more of their fans’ sexual fantasies and wet dreams. Live While We’re Young, an anthem for the YOLO-generation, may as well be talking about eloping and “getting some” which may be construed as an invitation to wanton lovemaking (“Girl, you and I, were about to make some memories tonight,” Zayn croons as though with an animalistic grin on his face).
The bonus track She’s Not Afraid might be about BDSM, and C’mon, C’mon is definitely an open admission of cheating and late night teasing (“The one that I came here with/She had to go/But you look amazing standing alone”). Expect more lewd and astoundingly detailed One Direction fan fiction on Tumblr, most probably written by lovestruck stans between the ages of 13 and 48.
It seems that One Direction is conscious of the wreckage of pop history before them, especially if the crutch to stardom leans on shaky ground. The boys have made an effort to course a trail of their own by co-writing some of their songs, maintaining their squeaky clean image despite the presence of suggestive lines in their songs and rumors of homosexuality stemming from their onstage touching and caressing. With their degree of involvement in their musical direction, coupled with Cowell’s sharp sense of marketing and packaging, One Direction may as well be the delightfully rousing overlords of pop music — one who can sell both candies and condoms for a diverse demographic. Heck, not even calling fans “a shower of c***s” (Niall’s infamous quip) can reduce their prospects to dust, especially with a world tour and a 3D movie on the horizon.
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