[REQUEST] One Direction: Take Me Home

Take Me Home

Best song: Change My Mind

Worst song: Rock Me

Overall grade: 3

I never used to give One Direction much thought. Much like Justin Bieber or Jedward, they were famous for having hairstyles, and happened to also release the odd song that sold like ice cream on a beach but that nobody older than thirteen actually listened to. And then it happened. People I knew, who I otherwise considered to have very good taste in music, began to confess to enjoying certain One Direction songs. Well, this wasn’t on! I see the appeal of the band to a certain demographic of people, but I just couldn’t understand why a commercial product with so little substance could satisfy a person whose favourite album is Revolver.

I made my feelings clear and then moved on, until a couple of weeks ago, when I was asked to listen to this album with an unbiased ear and review it. Which I did – and would you believe it, I only hate maybe ten of the songs on here!

It is difficult to know how to grade this, though. There are certain things I don’t know if I should take into account. For example, their superfans are often horrible people: I’ve often heard comments made by devotees to new fans like ‘we don’t want you, this fandom is full’. Bit harsh; surely it’s a good thing if more people appreciate your music? But I’m not using that as a criteria, since they don’t choose their fans. But there’s also the fact that the five members are actually pretty good singers. It’s never going to be demonstrated well on highly autotuned songs like ‘Kiss You’, but they have talent. Should I include that fact when deciding on a rating?

In the end, their abilities in the voice department were cancelled out by the fact that only three songs on the record give a songwriting credit to any member of the band, which is enough to make me lose respect for any artist. So I am judging this album entirely on its songs, most of which live up to my expectations.

Lead single ‘Live While We’re Young’ could almost be a parody. It really embodies every cliché of a modern day pop song: bright guitars, ridiculously obvious hook in the chorus, a more tender, slow bridge section in the otherwise uptempo song, never more than three seconds without some kind of vocal even if it’s just ‘oh, oh, oh’, most of the chorus layered and loud before the last line which is sung almost a cappella, and such a polished production that you could slip over on it. It’s blatantly assembly-line and doesn’t even try to hide it. I honestly can’t find a thing that might make it stand out from the crowd or distinguish itself from a thousand others released in the past few years. I particularly hate the lyrics, which are crude and obviously about sex, which is kind of inappropriate considering their fanbase.

Continuing with convention, One Direction follow the tried and tested pattern of two big, peppy singles followed by a ballad. I find ‘Little Things’ less painful to listen to than its two predecessors on the album, because it’s not so overtly commercial. But it’s still very formulaic and a song that’s meant to be this emotional and sincere really should be written by the band.

This album pretends the Beatles never happened, and goes back to the old tradition of padding out the singles with a handful of album tracks that don’t need to exist. ‘C’mon C’mon’ is a good example of this – it seems like it was written in half an hour to fill some space, and although it has an appropriately rousing chorus, the verses are mediocre and the quiet to loud transition in the third chorus is so awkward. Another example is ‘Over Again’, which I actually quite like the beginning of, as it’s more stripped down and has lost the production sheen – but that doesn’t last long. It’s written by Ed Sheeran, who has written a few good songs in his time, but this is clearly taken from his reject pile. ‘They Don’t Know About Us’ has a pretty piano introduction so that I originally thought it might be a nice surprise, but again, it quickly descends into pointlessness.

Each member of the band does make a token songwriting contribution, and some or all of them are featured (alongside professional songwriters) on ‘Last First Kiss’, ‘Back for You’, and ‘Summer Love’. Interestingly, these are three of the songs that come across as the most believable, and I think it shows that they’ve been more involved in the process from the start. But the first and last of these are also the most sickeningly sweet songs, making me gag with their too-perfect harmonies and lyrics that talk of unrealistic relationships.

As much as this style annoys me, it’s nowhere near as bad as ‘Rock Me’, the unlistenable Queen pastiche that occupies the middle spot on the album. I’d like to commend them for branching out, but hearing these five preppy, clean-cut boys try to convince us all they can play rock music is excruciating. In ten years’ time, it’ll be the embarrassing photo they have to keep hidden when people come round.

But finishing off on a positive note, there’s a couple of songs I can tolerate! ‘Heart Attack’ is mixed. The cries of ‘ow!’ in the chorus are really annoying, but I do find the tune very catchy. The pre-chorus section is good, and I like the way the close-up individual vocal of that part is neatly contrasted with the big group harmonising of the chorus. Should have been a single. And the biggest surprise of all is ‘Change My Mind’. It’s not positioned to be noticed and I’d never heard of it before I was commissioned to write this, but I’ve actually found myself growing to enjoy it rather a lot. It has a more mature feel than the surrounding tracks, and I can’t see it becoming dated as quickly as the rest of the record. The longing confusion of a guy who doesn’t know where he stands with a girl shows through, and although the multiple vocalists diminish the effect somewhat, its wistful melody and candid delivery show that maybe, just maybe, there’s some potential with these guys.

So while you won’t be finding me in the queue of people waiting to buy their next single the moment it comes out, I will be keeping half an eye out. Just to see where they go next.