10 years of One Direction’s FOUR
By Ansharah Shakil, November 17 2024—
Ten years ago, One Direction’s fourth studio album FOUR was released, on Nov. 17, 2014. A little over a month ago, the world received the news of Liam Payne’s death in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was 31 years old, leaving behind his family and his son Bear, only seven years old.
His family, friends and other musicians issued statements about Payne’s death, as did the remaining members of One Direction — Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik — individually and in a joint statement for the first time since 2020. Fans grieved for him with worldwide memorials and social media, mourning the loss of what he meant as well as who he was.
But the line between Payne’s public persona and his real life is important to acknowledge. This death should be a reckoning with the dire consequences of fame for young artists, not just by fans — like the ones organising “Liam’s Law” to protect artists’ mental health — but by the industry itself. Take Simon Cowell, whose despicable profit-based exploitation of teenagers directly contributed to the numerous difficulties every One Direction member faced.
Payne openly admitted to struggling with addiction and mental health. In the days leading up to his death, he was a subject of controversy due to the troubling allegations against him by his former girlfriend Maya Henry, a victim in this situation. But his death still feels impossible because it means realising any chance of recovery for him is lost as well.
He was the member most to have kept the band alive since they dissolved, no matter the judgement he received for it. Now new history-making records have One Direction’s music making a global comeback — each album has made a resurgence to the Billboard 200, with FOUR climbing the highest. One day after Payne’s death, streaming for the band and for his solo music had increased by 278 and 472 percent respectively.
When the band first formed, they were five teenagers who wanted fame partly for security, for their working-class families. Their global success was often dismissed due to the gender of most of their fans, but was continuously ground-breaking. One reason people loved One Direction is because of their genuine affection. It was a friendship borne out of serendipity, thrown together on a televised reality show, but a real and enduring friendship nonetheless. It only takes one look at the trajectory of their solo careers to see what they would branch into compared to what they once were, but it also only takes one listen of One Direction’s discography to see the euphony of their individual personalities and musical tastes in every album.
FOUR is the last One Direction album with Malik. It’s the last real One Direction album, because part of the band’s magic was all of their distinctive voices harmonising together, every member integral, and it’s the best One Direction album, because it’s where they got a solid grip on their sound. It’s transcendent and timeless, like it’ll never get old, while simultaneously feeling like the beginning of the band growing up.
Though other songs deserved to be singles more than album opener “Steal My Girl”, it remains a well-executed, irresistible pop song. Second single “Night Changes” is memorable for more than just its infamous music video. Critically acclaimed for the poignant lyrics, it’s no wonder the track flew up the charts after Payne’s death. It has a comforting, bittersweet quality, its nostalgia something to return to and reach for.
In third track “Ready to Run”, the sweet, slow vocalisations over the guitar are as stunning as the kick into the drums, all of which builds upon the band’s harmonies into one of their greatest choruses. It’s followed by “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”, a soaring, 80s-inspired showstopper of gorgeous urgency and stunning harmonies. You can feel the emotion in every line: each member delivers the kind of vocals that make you sit up and carefully listen.
The retro-toned, genre-transcending “Fireproof” is another excellent track, the first rueful verse an echo of the second, more hopeful verse. So is “Clouds”, which surges to life with its sublime first and second verses. Its high energy is shared with the lively, euphoric “Change Your Ticket” and with the eyebrow-raising lyrics, dreamy melodies and sudden snappy drums of “Stockholm Syndrome.”
“Illusion” and “Once in a Lifetime” are slightly weaker in comparison to the rest of the album, but still sincere and winning. Slower tracks include the quiet, intimate beauty of “Fool’s Gold” and the Ed Sheeran-penned “18.” In “18”, there’s one breathtaking moment when everything goes quiet except for a few stray guitar strings, and Tomlinson sings, “I have loved you since we were eighteen / Long before we both thought the same thing,” voice thin and silvery before everyone else joins in a cinematic rush to sing, “To be loved and to be in love” — a lyric encompassing the whole album.
One of the greatest things about FOUR is how it was transformed by its audience. On “18”, Horan’s Irish accent makes his line “We took a chance” sound like “chonce”, leading fans to scream “chonce” during the line at concerts, to the extent that it feels inseparable from the original line. It says something about the emotions artists and audiences pour into a song that its legacy can change for being loved. That’s true for “No Control”, too. Giddy, addicting and filled with clever innuendos, “No Control” topped the charts primarily due to a fan-led worldwide campaign called #ProjectNoControl.
A major highlight on FOUR has always been the nonsensical lyrics of the triumphant fan favourite “Girl Almighty.” Now the line “Let’s pray we stay young, stay made of lightning” has taken on a new gravity and grief. And “Spaces” will probably never feel the same again after Payne’s death. First viewed as an appropriate lament for Malik, it’s now difficult to hear the band sing “Who’s gonna be the first to say goodbye?” and know the answer.
But FOUR doesn’t end on “Spaces.” Its final track is “Act My Age”, a riotous, jubilant Irish-jig with the lyrics, “I can count on you, after all that we’ve been through, cause I know that you’ll always understand.” Like Styles said in the band’s concert documentary One Direction: This is Us, “We’ll always be a part of each other, like growing up.” That’s true for the band, the fans that grew up listening to them and the undeniable impact they had on the music industry. They were, are and always will be a sensation — something once in a lifetime.