![]() Rock Me, however, is pretty excruciating, as is perhaps inevitable from a song in which teenage boyband members attempt to strike a note of sepia-tinted nostalgia. The chorus of Kiss You is hard to dislodge from your brain,even as said brain is boggling both at the notion it took seven different writers to come up with it, and that one of them is the former lead vocalist of death metal band Blinded Colony. Still, as anyone who's read some of the more frenzied One Direction-related Twitter feeds will tell you, it's tame stuff compared to what some weenyboppers are dreaming up of their own accord.Įlsewhere, the material is of variable quality. ![]() Live While We're Young's protagonist is tireless in his determination to "get some", as the song romantically puts it, while Last First Kiss deals with divesting a recalcitrant girl of her maidenhood: "I want to be the first to take it all the way." You do wonder what parents might make of it. If a lot of Take Me Home is concerned with pitching harmless romance at its pubescent audience in a style that's time-honoured to the point of being hackneyed – They Don't Know About Us is essentially Paul Anka's Puppy Love retooled for the BBM generation – other parts of it comprise more of an all-out, crotch-level blitzkrieg than you might expect. It also introduces a recurring lyrical motif. It introduces Take Me Home's signature style: a peppy, synth-bolstered take on early-80s new-wave pop, heavy on clipped rhythms and chugging guitars, which is at least an improvement on the ersatz R&B that was once the grim lot of the boyband. It's hard to know what's more galling: the degree of brass-balls cynicism on display, or the fact that the result is actually quite good. In an act of nose-thumbing contempt, it changes literally one note, presumably to avoid having to pay the Clash any royalties. Live While We're Young rips off the intro of the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go? so brazenly it even includes the sound of a plectrum stroking a guitar's muted strings three times between blasts of the riff. ![]() Certainly, anyone who views their mentor and his Syco organisation as pantomime villains doesn't have long to wait for what you might call a bwah-ha-ha moment. You might know their breakthrough hit, What Makes You Beautiful, but could you hum the title track of their debut album, Up All Night? Can you offer any intelligence regarding the Australian Souvenir Edition bonus track Na Na Na?Ĭlose examination of Take Me Home might unlock One Direction's secret. And yet, from the outside, their success looks a little confusing: why, out of the serried ranks of manufactured British hunks, has the US chosen to clasp cheeky-faced Harry Styles to its bosom? If you're not an 11-year-old girl or the long-suffering parent of one, their oeuvre will remain a mystery. ![]()
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