One Direction - Four ALBUM REVIEW

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Let’s get one thing straight here: I’m a One Direction fan. At one point, I wasn’t because it was a funny trend. The most vivid memory I have about One Direction is in 8th grade when I made a joke about hating One Direction (I don’t remember what I said), and this person in my class locked eyes with me and it genuinely terrified me. We’re all good now, but that moment proved to me that the One Direction fanbase is a truly dedicated one. Since then, I’ve come to like the quintet’s music, and even some of their solo projects since they’ve disbanded. Today, I’ll be covering Four, 1D’s fourth and final studio album as a full group, with Zayn Malik leaving the group a few months after Four’s release. Let’s get into it and see how it is.

Four is a pop album with some rock influences. For the tenth anniversary of 1D, I had listened through their five albums because, well, I felt like it. I had intended to review one of their records, but I didn’t know which one. After I heard Four, I decided that I had a lot more to write about this than the other albums. I had noticed a lot more maturity from Midnight Memories to Four, but the songwriting was still there and present. Out of the five boys that were writing the tracks, I’d say that Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne are the MVPs of this album. They wrote a good deal of the songs on here, and I just happened to like what I heard. As for the sound and instrumentals on Four, it’s leaning on the 80s side, and they honestly fit that sound very well. To narrow it down more, it’s almost like the anthemic arena-filled bands and singers like Journey or Bruce Springsteen or even The Beach Boys. I’d never compared any of those acts to 1D on a normal day, but that’s just the vibe I get. Picking out a couple songs, I’d pick the ever-great “Night Changes,” “Once in a Lifetime,” and “Clouds” as my favorite tracks.

While it’s nothing truly groundbreaking for the pop genre, Four is a pretty fun record to listen to. If you’re a 1D fan, it’s basically more of the same, and you won’t complain about that. For outside fans, though, it won’t convert any non-believers. I personally believe that Four is their best record, and as of now, I don’t think it will be topped any time soon. Some parts of my heart think that they’ll have a proper reunion at some point. I just hope that that one friend and I are around to absolutely obsess over it.


7/10


Stream Four here

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