One Direction released their fourth studio album, “Four”, two weeks ago, and it’s still thriving off of international success. Already, it has peaked at number one on the charts in sixteen countries, including our own Billboard 200, gone platinum in three countries, and gold in two – and deservedly so.
When I listened to “Four” for the first time, I couldn’t come up with the right words to describe it. Even now, I’m struggling to type anything but incoherent strings of caps lock and the heart eyes emoji. The music has progressed so much from their first boyband hits, like the super popular “What Makes You Beautiful” and “One Thing”, and now, it’s popular to a much wider audience.
The songs on “Four” aren’t the type that twelve-year-old girls sing into their hairbrushes while wearing puffy-painted concert t-shirts and drooling over the posters of Harry Styles plastered all over their bedrooms. It makes me so happy to hear people say, “This is One Direction?!” when they hear some of the songs.
When they announced that they would be releasing another album, band member Liam Payne claimed that the sound would be “edgier”. I knew that One Direction was getting edgier in their looks, with their tattoos and expensive designer everything, and I knew that the bandmates themselves liked artists like The Temper Trap and The 1975, so hearing that their music was finally going to match their image got me really excited.
Some of the biggest names in music co-wrote with One Direction on the album, including McFly, Kodaline, John Legend, Emeli Sande, and much to my surprise, The 1975. I can definitely hear the indie rock sound in lots of the songs on “Four”, and just the fact that more alternative artists like Kodaline and The 1975 wanted to work with One Direction shows that the band is steering away from the teeny-bopper boyband style and moving toward being taken seriously by all genres.
“Four” is such an uplifting album. Even the slow songs make me happy. The instrumentals are so much more sophisticated than the synthesizer pad beats in their previous albums. The little guitar riffs and piano medleys in between verses of each song put me in such a good mood.
In the song “Spaces”, one of the slower ballads on the album, the part that goes, “Who’s gonna be the first to say goodbye?” fills me with such a sense of wonder. I don’t even know how to get what I’m trying to say across, but when their voices all chime in to say the word “goodbye”, it sounds so harmonic. You just have to listen to it for yourself.
The upbeat songs on the album are some of my favorites. I love the cute little love songs like “Girl Almighty” and “No Control”, but the band also did a great job taking serious topics and turning them into fun to listen to songs, like “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” and “Clouds”. The romantics come in during songs like “18” and “Night Changes”, and “Stockholm Syndrome” is super catchy. I’ve probably listened to the whole album on repeat about 496 times by now.
I would not hesitate to say that One Direction will be winning awards for this album at all the major music awards shows this year. “Four” has taken them to new heights, exposed them to new people, and opened up a whole new world of possibilities for their next album.
I’ve been a fan of the band since I was thirteen, and I’ve been getting kind of nervous that I would have to hide the fact that I like them now that I’m eighteen, but this album has proven that that is not the case. One Direction is maturing right alongside all of us, and “Four” was the perfect way for them to prove their breakthrough.
If you’ve never listened to One Direction before because of their “boyband persona”, I highly encourage you to give “Four” a try. If I could, I would give it more than five out of five North Stars, and I’d even consider renaming the album because it is way more than a four in my eyes.
