There are few music certainties in life… Lady GaGa will always try too hard, Kanye West will always be a bit of a tool and, come November, there will always be a new One Direction album. Their third album, ‘Midnight Memories’ is their most adult output yet.
By adult, we mean that they have left all musical decision making to adults far older and cynical than them.
Upcoming stadium tour? Let’s chuck a few 1980s riffs on there! An aging female audience? Lets rip off Mumford & Sons! You heard that last bit right. You may have tried to pretend that ‘Story of My Life’ was a once off. Nope.
‘Happily’, ‘Through The Dark’, ‘Something Great’… all ‘folk-pop’. You can even imagine them sitting on stools for ‘You and I’. Westlife would have happily released it as a single…in 1999. That’s the bad news.
The good news? The 1980s theme… it’s actually quite smart. Everyone knows the boys can’t dance so it makes sense to give them songs that involves more jumping up and down rather than typical boyband choreography.
‘Diana’ is probably the best of the bunch. It’s this album’s ‘Kiss You’ and we may or may not have had it on repeat for the last week… and we’re not even a teen let alone a tween! ‘Little White Lies’ and ‘Strong’ are both single-worthy too, though the latter is too similar to Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Stronger’.
‘Does He Know’ borrows a bit too much from ‘Jessie’s Girl’ (much the way ‘Best Song Ever’ borrows from The Who) though it will get the crowd going at their stadium gigs next year nevertheless.
Much like their first two albums, you probably have to be a boyband fanatic to really get into it, but there are still moments for the casual listener to enjoy. It doesn’t rock the boat but it does allow fans to choose their own adventure.
Hopefully the fans prefer the catchy 1980s stuff over the folk stuff so that the rest of us can still enjoy commercial radio come the next One Direction album campaign. In November 2014 of course.
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Anonymous says
I bought this album yesterday, and as soon as I listened to some of the more “folky” or acoustic songs I immediately thought of Mumford & Sons. Guess I’m not alone! Although, I do prefer this sound in general, and these are the songs I like most on the album. It’s good to change things up a bit and do something a little more mature. :)