One Direction is at it again after releasing their fourth studio album, cleverly named “Four”. This album was dropped on Monday November, 17 and has successfully been their fourth album to debut atop the Billboard 200 chart. As of right now, the album is charted at number ten on the Billboard 200. If the album sells as well as the industry believes it will over the next week it is believed that One Direction could easily reach the second-largest sales week of 2014, being beat out only by Taylor Swift’s “1989”. Within the first week of the album’s release 546,000 copies were sold and was the largest sales week for One Direction thus far.
One Direction has been making music for four years now as a group and this new album proves that not only have they matured, but the sound they are trying to achieve has as well. Everyone thinks of One Direction as the sixteen year old heartthrobs they once were when they were discovered on the X-Factor four years ago, but that is no longer the case. One Direction, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Liam Payne, have come a long way with their vocal abilities and “Four” is a great example of that.
The boys have given up the cliché boy band sound and replaced it with a more grown up alternative sound that incorporates small hints of the 1980’s. This new sound doesn’t mean that they have stopped writing songs to make “One Directioners” swoon and think about just how dreamy the five lads are. In the music video for their newest single “Night Changes” viewers are taken on dates with each and every boy in the group, and things end up disastrous by the end of the video. It’s the little things like simple music videos such as this one that keeps the girls coming back and buying their albums.
In One Direction’s first single from the album “Steal My Girl” we are introduced to the group’s new sound through a very 80’s sounding piano opening mixed with Malik’s falsetto voice. This song being the album’s opener can easily be deemed appropriate. The song sets a fun, up-beat tone for the rest of the album and makes you want to hear more of this new sound. As the album continues the sounds of the songs start to vary. Songs like “Ready to Run”, “No Control” and “Clouds” offer up a more lively sound like Imagine Dragon’s “On Top of the World”. All of these songs have two things in common: there are actually instruments being played in the background instead of synthesizers; and big choruses that make it easy to feel like you are engulfed in the music almost giving the feeling of unity with the boys.
The boys might have been ambitious with the new sound of the album, but they aren’t quite ready to give up the slow acoustic love ballads that they are so famous for. “Fool’s Gold” and “18” successfully fill One Direction’s quota for slow acoustic songs. The song “18” almost has an Ed Sheeran feel to it while the boys sing nostalgically about a love they once had at the age of eighteen. “Stockholm Syndrome” is probably the closest to an old One Direction song you’re going to get to on the new album. Although this song resembles the older sound, it still has a unique twist to it in the chorus when it turns into your classic 1980’s pop song. Finally, the boys have included a couple of songs that fulfill the loose ends like “Fireproof”, “Girl Almighty” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”. “Fireproof” and “Girl Almighty” showcase the sound of acoustic guitars, group singing and clapping – what else does a song need? And finally “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” is the epitome of a 1980’s inspired power ballad.
All in all, it is safe to say that the boys of One Direction aren’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.