Every Single Album - 'Up All Night' | Every Single Album: One Direction

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard kick off their One Direction journey with the band's debut album, 'Up All Night.' They talk about the boys' origin on 'The X Factor' (1:07), the artists they drew inspiration from for their first album (41:42), and the intense touring schedule they immediately embarked on following the release of their album (1:02:35). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Dave Chang and Chris Ying. We are the hosts of Recipe Club. You may have listened to it before, but we are now back on the air, new and improved, with the same host that lose every week. I still don't know what the rules are because they've changed as well. Chris, can you give a quick rundown? Every week, we debate the best way to cook the things you want to eat. We take a user, listener submitted recipe, and we all cook it with our friends,

Priya Krishna, Rachel Kong, Brian Ford, and John DeBerry. And then we talk about what went right in one. went wrong. No, I actually really don't want to do this podcast. And they are hardly our friends. They are enemies. They are enemies. It's Dave's civil disobedience. If you want to see Dave Chang in an act of civil disobedience, tune in to Recipe Club where he will not follow the recipe. I'm contractually obligated to make this podcast. But I'm here to have a good time. So listen to Recipe Club every week on the Ringer Podcast Network. Oh, and welcome to every single album, One Direction.

I'm Nora Princeati, and I am back with Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, how are you doing? Fuss happening, Nora. What's happening, boys? What's happening boys? What's up? All right. That's good. I know you're ready with the deep cuts. What is happening is that we are here to talk about one of the biggest bands of all time. People probably know the story.

One Direction started as five solo contestants on the singing competition show The X Factor. What's your name? My name's Louis Tomlinson. Off you go. Hi, what's your name? My name, Zane. Zane. Hello.

Nice to meet you. What's your name? I'm Harry Stiles. Okay. What's your name? Name. Now what? Forum.

Liam. How are you? Simon, you're right. Nice to see you. I've seen you in a long time. I've been a while. Two years, yeah? Two years, yeah, two years.

Who were going to be eliminated when producer Simon Cowell asked if they'd stay and compete as a group. They became this overnight sensation. They had hordes of fans following them before they'd even released their own song. But what fascinates me, Nathan, about One Direction is that what started as this totally manufactured group

wound up having the thing that is most elusive to even the biggest boy bands, which is real staying power in the music industry. They put out five record breaking, albums before they split up, and then several of the band members have gone on to these hugely successful solo careers since then. And tracing that musical development from the start, up until the release of Harry Styles' newest album on May 20th, is what we're going to cover this season, which I'm so excited about because it's going to give us a chance to talk about

some music that's really near to my heart and that I think has way more to offer than maybe initially met some people's eye. I totally love this band, and I will share my One Direction history in a second, but Nathan, tell me yours first. My One Direction history started when I was running Ticketmaster and just in a state of panic, bouncing back and forth between London and Los Angeles because we were supposed to do the 2012 Olympics. And the Olympics happens to be the most difficult thing to ticket in the world because you have all of these simultaneous events happening at the same time.

The on sale is just massive. people from all over the world are trying to buy these tickets and they've got all sorts of levels of access. And to be totally candid, it's not a secret. Our system was struggling to sort of manage it. And in the midst of all this, some fucking boy band went up with their tour and it crushed us worse than the Olympics were crushing us. And all of a sudden, not only did we have an Olympics problem, but we had a one direction problem. Let's talk about One Direction. Happy Talk.

They're causing the kind of screaming that we haven't seen since the Beatles first arrived here. Their debut CD up all night, went to number one in 13 countries, including the U.S. And now the just released Up All Night Live Tour DVD is topping the charts as well. And that was my first experience with them. And it sort of culminated for me in pre-COVID. I took my eldest daughter to go see Harry's basically one and only fine line show, which was at the forum. And she was a One Direction fan, I wouldn't say necessarily One Directioner,

but she wasn't totally sold. And we went to the show and she came out and her eyes were like spinning and rotating in opposite direction. She was so Googling. And turned her into a massive Harry fan and really went backwards then into the catalog of One Direction even deeper. So this is a story about Harry. It's a story about Zane. It's a story about Louis. It's a story about Lyme.

It's a story about Nile for sure. But there are some fun ways in which these artists have been discovered not just through the band, but actually backwards because of some of their solo work. So take me back a little bit, though, to when the tour is blowing everything up. Like, you're in a meeting. Somebody goes, okay, we also have a one direction problem right now. How familiar are you with what that means? Do you know the boys?

Do you know the songs? Are you like, what the heck is one direction? Take me there. Yeah, not at all. I mean, I was early on the Jonas Brothers for the same reason. It was like, who are these guys filling up massive venues? But I missed it at the outset in part because I wasn't watching the X factor. But you couldn't miss it as suddenly you have this band that, you know, in the touring business, right?

In 2008, 2009, the concerns in the touring industry were, at least from the outside, were, well, geez, all of the acts playing stadiums and arenas are in their 50s and 60s and, you know, maybe even soon to be their 70s. Like, it just doesn't look like there's going to be any next generation of young artists who's really going to be taking the mantra and playing these huge venues. And on top of that, those big artists who were going out, who were old, were generally doing it in cycles. You two would go out once every three years, maybe four years, right? And so there was this sort of this pattern of artists not just being out constantly on the road. And then all of a sudden,

bam, in 2012, you have these boys who are super young, they're super new, they are playing eventually stadiums, and they're doing it every single year. It's just an unprecedented amount of work and demand that put to bed right away. Any notion that stadium acts and arena acts were going to be a thing of the past and that the digitization of music was creating the nicheification of fandoms that were no longer going to really support Arena Acts and Stadium Acts. This was really the first band that got made by the internet, wasn't it, Nora? Brittany, Taylor, you know, well, it was really, they, they can't.

beforehand for sure, and they were big artists, Justin Bieber, I should say, and Taylor, really, were artists who got buzzed up by the internet. But this was the first real band that became a global phenomenon because of the internet. Right. And they did that wall sort of in tandem with the publicity boost of being on the X Factor. But I remember, I didn't watch the X Factor when it was happening. I didn't watch it while it was going. I have a cousin who's a little bit younger than me and she and my aunt and uncle live in London. And she's, I would describe her as like an OG directioner. Cool as hell.

I would describe myself as a really big one direction fan. I don't think I'm probably a little bit on the older side to have like fully, fully, fully ridden the wave from the start. She fully, fully, fully rode the wave. All in on the wave. Square one. And like I am the crazy Taylor Swift fan in our family. She is the crazy one direction fan in our family.

I say crazy as a token. of love in this context. But I do remember, I mean, I remember what makes you beautiful from the jump. Right? And that was as much about the music video as it was about the song.

And it wasn't the type of song where I just remember hearing it and learning the lyrics, knowing what it sounded like. Even when there was just really one song by this band that I really knew, I knew who was singing it. I knew that there were five boys.

I knew what they looked like. I pretty quickly at least had a vague sense of there's personality behind this. This is how they all know each other. They're buddies. They're British and Irish. Like, here's that whole thing. So it really was a social phenomenon. And then, again, I don't think I would call myself like a full-on directioner,

but I did, I remember seeing the, um, that this is us, the first movie, and thinking it was just very charming. I think I really, it's funny, you talk about the touring. I really went in deep when kind of by happenstance. Oh, did you go? So my friend's mom won like a raffle.

And my friends, Sammy and Katie and I got insanely good seats to see them at MetLife. and we ended up, so we were sitting next to Julianne Moore and like her kids. Why would, oh, okay. And we just had this like epic night seeing One Direction. And I remember like before that show going back through some of the discography and just being like, oh, I know all these songs. I didn't quite realize I knew all these songs, but I know all of these songs.

And I think these songs are really, really, really good. Did you actually know the songs or did they just remind you of other songs that you knew? So there's probably a little bit of that. I think the earlier on you go, the more of that there is. Yeah. But I felt the same way going back to do some of the prep work for this. It's just always like, oh, this is a little bit deeper than I at first glance think it is. And look, I will put that statement up for debate.

But in my heart of hearts, I really do feel that. I just think that there's real depth. as well as some really wonderful shiny stuff here. It's the two sides of the one direction coin, because on the one hand, this entire thing was packaged up and marketed and put out and distributed to make money, right? The whole thing was sort of made for TV,

made for fans, constructed by a number of powers that be. And yet, on the other side of the coin, to your point, there is some real authenticity. to their relationship, their interactions, and the music. It is not always just vapid, I've heard it before, pop. And the brilliance of the way that they came to be, like this moment in time in 2011, 2012. 2012's biggest albums were Adele's 21. Taylor's Red, Mumford.

And I will wait, I will wait for you. Carrie Underwood, Rihanna, Alicia Keys. So you had a lot of female artists breaking through in that moment. The rock category is Bruce Springsteen, old as hell. Coldplay, older, right? Mumford, kind of for older people. Alabama shakes. Like, in the pop category in the Grammys,

you had Kelly Clarkson, Adele, Katie Perry, Carly Ray Jepson, Rihanna. So these boys had a lane, right? there was a sort of gaping hole for male rock that was younger and that incorporated some of the elements of these pop star females who were breaking out. And unbeknownst to them as they started this journey on the X factor, they were ultimately all going to come together to fill that hole. It's not what was planned from the start. But I just love that dichotomy of the manufactured component of it, the real commercialization of it. And yet on the other side, side some authenticity as we go through this journey and see how these boys turn into men and how

their relationships evolve. It teaches us a lot about the music industry on its own. So we are going to spend this episode talking about their first album up all night. We have categories, but what you just said leads me to what I think is an important question that we have to address before we start that, which is, Nathan, what is a boy band? Good Lord. Who knows? I mean, it's the thing about this that was weird is people said, well, they're a boy band. They're like the Beatles. It's like, dude, the Beatles were not a boy band. There was. Or were they? I just think there was a crushing level of support for a bunch of boys. But I don't, I think a boy band has a predetermined commercialization, manufactured, put together by some puppet masters,

with the express intent of tugging on the heartstrings of young girls at the time. And generally speaking, in the boy band world, it is less about song crafting, which I think the Beatles very much were intense songwriters from the beginning and crafting songs and evolving in that way. Although we'll see, that also happens to these boys

as they become men. They also turn into songwriters themselves. But I think there is sort of generally this sort of a boy band is a vessel for the hormonal and musical interests of girls at any given moment in time. And we saw it with in sync. We saw it with the backstreet boys. We saw it with new kids on the block.

All of those bands were sort of created for a moment in time. All of them had the Justin Timberlakes of the world and also the Lance passes of the world. And some who went on and some who got left behind. But they were sort of moments that reflected culture at the time. Do I have that wrong? What am I missing? No, I think you're right. but I also think that a lot of that

describes one direction, right? A lot of the, okay, they're sort of Frankenstein together in this manner that's incredibly appealing to primarily, though not exclusively young women. I'm into this band, let's be clear.

Totally, totally. I also did 48 hours on a Taylor Swift podcast, so I may not be a representative sample. But there's probably more of it at the outset. of their career and then it changes. But I think there is some, the key differences, right, are most boy bands that we sort of think of as the canon boy bands, the in sinks, the backstreet boys of the world.

There's more of an R&B influence. Whereas with One Direction, there's a lot more of a rock influence. Much to Zane's regret and chagrin. And that's going to be a theme that we see through the course of this journey, isn't it? Right. One Direction does not dance. At all. I mean, not even remotely. I mean, even Harry Styles now can best be described as like the Joker meets a little bit of Mick Jagger. And that's probably the best thing that's going. Harry can work a stage. Let's be very clear on that. For sure. But it's not, you know.

He's not a dancer. Oh, there we go. 15 minutes in, we've got the first accent appearance. We know it was coming. But I think that's going to be an interesting question for this album in particular. Because I think you end up hearing a lot of sort of playing around with the idea of, is this a boy band? Is this something different? Now, I don't want to commit Jonas Brothers erasure here and say that there weren't popular examples of bands made up of. young men who were more rock influenced, although I would argue that I think the Jonas

brothers were presented more as a rock band. Like, they held instruments on stage. Now, it was a cleaned up, Disney-fied version of that. But one direction exists in sort of this like middle space between they're not wearing matching outfits and doing synchronized dance moves. You don't really have like, here's the, you know, it's not a spice girl's thing where here's sporty, here's baby, or like, here's the one that appeals to this. I mean, you could. That would be a fun mix and match game. Yeah, we'll play that maybe later on.

But they are, they are kind of a, I think. Yeah, they're a band without a, without a catalog for a bit, right? Their first tour, they're on the X Factor Tour live. They play five songs in the set. They play a Snow Patrol song. They play Forever Young. They play kids in America. They play Kelly Clarkson.

My Life Would Suck Without You. And they play a Rihanna song. That's their set list for their first tour. This is not a band yet, right? They're sort of a karaoke group. But a very good one. All right. I just think that this is important context to set up our discussion of this album.

But let's do it. Let's talk about Up All Night, which came out in 2011. They had finished third on the X Factor. and did a little bit of touring in conjunction with the end of the show, but then pretty much immediately started recording it and worked on it pretty quickly. Again, they had to just sort of come up with a catalog almost on the fly because there was, the interest was outpacing the prepared product. Right.

But we're going to start with our first category, which is the biggest hit, which means that we're going to talk about what makes you beautiful. It does. A song derived from the school of Max Martin, Savin Cotecha writes this about his wife. We need to talk about sort of the undertones of this song and whether or not today this would be like a cancelable song or not. But he also does it.

There's this ultimate trio of Savin Cotetcha and Carl Falk and Ramiyakoub, who are all descendants and disciples of the Max Martin School of Songwriting and Production. They're going to be featured heavily, particularly early on in their career. I think Savin was a vocal coach and producer on the X Factor, which is how he got this first intro. So he had some familiarity with the band. Right, because he did Vass Happen' Boys, the iconic song. And oh, Louis needs a boat. He dresses like he owns one because he's got no other clothes. the iconic Vas Havana Boys' YouTube song, which is an interesting point. Again, we got to know this

band and less so today, but even still, there was more content outside the albums than there was sort of inside the albums of substance anyway, right? Lyrically, these are not heavily autobiographical songs. In fact, in a lot of cases, other people are putting words in their mouths. And so we get to know these individuals through cute things like the Voss Happen video and all of the other video diaries that started on the X Factor. I mean, before we even got to this hit, Nora, what is your overall review of their auditions for the X Factor and performance overall? Like, I'm stunned that this band came together in the way that they did based on some of the now infamous auditions. Liam, great. Liam was ready.

Liam crushed it. Liam had auditioned before. He had it going on. He did Cry Me a River. I thought he sounded great. Admittedly, you get to the Louie's, and it's not so strong. It's not quite there.

I believe Louis at one point, maybe it was in the movie or something. He issued an apology to the plain white T's for doing, Hey There, Delilah. I'd like to make a personal apology to plain white T's. me what you do to me. I think that's a good moment of self-weilance. Yeah, it was tough and it does at the outset,

you can see the difference in readiness across these five guys. And so then the question becomes like, what was the actual impetus for putting them together? But what we know about this song is that Harry was the one who heard it, right? And texted to Savin and said, I think you've got the one here. And the label instead of doing the traditional, like, let's go to radio and build it up,

they did exactly what they should have with one of the first big internet bands, which was they used social media to build a ton of buzz about the song in the U.S., obviously it had come out in the U.K. in November. As it started to build in the U.S. through social media, radio stations were getting calls saying, can you play this song? They didn't even have it yet. So it is a huge part of what contributed. to the very rare occurrence of a UK-based artist

breaking in the U.S. And in fact, contributed to them being the first UK artist ever to have their debut album debut at number one in the U.S. Right. So not the Beatles, not cold play, one direction. And so just to your point on that, they'd had success doing stuff like that on the X factor, right?

Which involves a lot of fan voting. So things like the silly Vass Happen Boys thing they did with Sovin went viral and it grew their fan base. So I think they'd had that positive feedback of building that audience on social media. They knew how to market. Yeah. And they did that here by releasing the video in August. So the song's not out. The song's not even out in the UK.

But the video goes up on August 19th. So it comes out in September in the UK and the November in the U.S. but by the moment it's released, like you said, every radio station is getting bombarded with calls to play it. But up till that point, the only place people saw it was through the video. So they had this incredible runway. I've been to that sand dune, by the way.

That sand dune is up the road from my house. We go up there, almost every Christmas we have a tradition. We go up, you can pull the car to the side of the road, and it's this huge sand dune that you hike up, and then you can run down at 11 million miles an hour and half the people fall and just tumble like they're on a ski slope and then the other people keep going.

It's like a very... It's awesome. It's like in Malibu, right? It is. It's just north of Malibu up the PCH and they're doing it. They're sprinting it up and back. So you can go do that.

It's a fun thing. But even in that moment... I want my invite next year. Yeah, let's roll. I mean, we can go up there next time you come out. But even in that video, they're starting to make stars out of a few of them, aren't they?

Yeah. We'll get to some of that later. But song ends up number one in the UK. It goes quadruple platinum in the U.S. And it's the clear winner here, and it sets the album up for huge success. One Direction is taken over the music world, one country at a time.

They played the sort of fan-based social media game really, really effectively to build all this buzz for this song. But then I think having such a successful lead single kind of did that in turn for the album as a whole. It sounds not unlike Joan Jets hit me with your best shot, the guitar parts. Oh. So the comp that I was going to go with was Summer Levin from Greece. There you go.

But it's interesting because both of those songs are kind of, are. are very much like classically rockish. Right? And this is definitely the One Direction album where there's the most kind of

of Europop or more classic croony OG boy bandness. And you talked about Savin and all the guys who had sort of the Max Martin lineage.

They've all got their PhD in boy bands, right? Like they know what that sound is, but one thing that they're playing with here is the sort of ceiling and floor of an act from the UK maybe or maybe not being best positioned to cross over to the US, right? Like one thing that was very much on their minds at this time that I think you can hear if you listen carefully to the album was that they weren't so sure this band was going to work in America. They were probably more confident that they would work in the UK and in Europe.

And there's some very kind of Europoppy production in particular. That goes away, for the most part, later in their discography. But whether it's a happy accent or not, a lot of the undertones and a lot of the undertones and a lot of the redone and a lot of the references in the biggest song from this album are more grounded in rock, which, again, coincidentally or not, is pretty prescient because that's where they end up finding the lane that that really works for them and gives them the space that helps them crossover. Right. There just isn't a lot of guitar-driven pop rock on the radio. It has its roots in Europop to be sure, but then there's also some sum 41.

There's some third-eye blind. There's some All-American rejects that seeps its way into these songs, and there are definitely women singing some songs like this, but there are no young men or boys who are really doing it, and that is the lane that they find. And I think, coupled with the explosion in social media, those are the two things that drive this music

to be the crossover sort of global. hit that it becomes. And that's all, that all kind of has to do with, again, us circling this question of like, what type of boy band is this? Is this a boy band? However, in one sense, because I think we should talk about this song sort of thematically and the lyrics, as you alluded to, thematically, it's very boy band. Because in this song, and for a long time to come, one direction is writing songs about why girls are awesome. Yeah. And Harry Styles will go on to write a song, woman, which literally

starts with a voice dubbing of someone saying, should we just search romantic comedies on Netflix? Should we just search romantic comedies on Netflix and then see what we find? And I think that might actually be less on the nose than this song in terms of a construction that is supposed to tell

a woman what she allegedly wants to hear. It's highly manipulative. It is I mean, again, lyrically, there's some part of this that feels, I don't know, is this still okay? Are these words still okay? I don't think that it's not cancelable at all. Is it corny? It's corny. It's corny. It's corny aft. So, yes, this song was inspired by Sovin talking to his wife. I believe while he was on the toilet. Yeah. Was how he shared this anecdote. They're like in a hotel. And she's,

like, I feel so ugly today. And he's like, no, you're beautiful. You don't know you're beautiful. That's crazy. And then he goes, oh, that's a song. And Harry's like, I love it. It's a winner. And you know, the rest is history. I don't know. I think it's one of those things that's okay because it works.

There are some definitions of beauty and some communication about what beauty is across a number of these songs that when it goes out to like a sub 18 year old audience, you might get a little concerned and we'll explore some of those themes. But there is also enough... Cough Ed Shearin, cough.

Yeah, yeah. There's also enough just sort of empty vessel stuff in these songs. Lots of ooze and yes and babies and girls that you can just sort of fill up the generic

amorphous nature of the lyrics with whatever it is you want to see in them. So it is just hugely accessible. And I think that's what that makes the song go. And the boys are also accessible. Like, it's funny to look back now, particularly with Harry,

who's like generational heartthrob, but also mysterious and all of these things. But none of these guys, like there was not a Justin Timberlake in the group. There was also not a Joey Fatone in the group. Like, everyone was sort of fun, approachable.

None of them see, like, they seemed kind of getable. What is the most loving and caring thing you would ever do for a girl, right? Straight over to you, Lynn? I would take a girl on a romantic holiday. Okay, and you now? Bring her over. Brilliant and Zay. Yep, I'd probably, um.

Okay, then. And I think it's easier to pull this song off if that's true. Or you seem skeptical. I don't know. I mean, they're all good-looking guys. I think that's why they get put together. But you're invested in the relationship and in the individuals before you were invested in the music if you were a fan from the beginning. Yeah, but they all seem fun and they all seem nice. Like, none of them seem like, none of them give like prom king vibes. Yeah. In hindsight, now with some of the tensions that ultimately will emerge, do we think that that was all authentic? I mean, the story of these guys is they get put together on the X Factor.

They go away for two weeks and hang out in a house and build relationship and they come out being really good buddies. Zane seems to take issue with that line of narrative today. And you can see it a little bit as his introvert nature. You know, we see through a lot of the video stuff. So you could maybe believe that. But you are, I mean, these are boys who. have just enough edge, some of them with the tattoos and the like,

that you can sort of authentically believe they're rockers, but they're safe enough and sort of representing everything that you would ideally fantasize about a young boy to be. Right? Nice, fun. They don't fight with each other. There's not

a whole lot of... There's enough alpha in the way that they act, but they're so self-deprecating and humorous that it comes off as charm. Hi, I'm Nile. I'm Harry. I'm Zane. I'm Liam. And I'm Jennifer. And I think what worked is that you're right. That's the way a lot of these guys are. There also is a lot of propaganda and PR around this group that puts a nice shiny varnish on the surface. Underneath it, they were certainly more human than at least they presented themselves out of the gate. That's absolutely true. And definitely as a...

as it relates to how they appealed to their fans and to young women who might see them as sort of romantic idols, there was, I'm sure, painstaking effort to preserve that patina of getability and approachability. Like, there are no clear female needs in these music videos. There is no girl who you can start to be jealous of because. Yeah, you could be jealous of the girl, Harry's singing too in the... Well, so we'll talk about that in a bit. Maybe. Okay.

Okay. If that's the closest that we're getting, it's really, it's a few seconds. Okay. And I think that's on purpose. Okay. I mean, to the extent that they're with women in these videos, it's mostly in a group context where everyone's included and everyone's having fun. And there's very little, like one on one.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, I think that just sort of maintains like you can put yourself in that. There's no competitor to what makes you beautiful for the biggest hit song, right? This was their biggest hit. It eventually became the only song from this

album that really would make it into the live tour once they got a little bit more of a catalog, even though I do think, Nora, to get to our second category, that there are some better songs than this one on this album. I'm not going to go first. I need to hear what you.

Do you think this is the best song in the album? So, this is one of those songs where it's like, it's just so clearly bigger and more capital I important than the rest of it that it's really hard for me to take anything away from it. It's definitely, it requires the acceptance that a special secret sauce matters in that kind of discussion because there are definitely like technically better songs. Here's what I will give you if I'm going to give you a gnawn what makes you beautiful. I love tell me a lie. Wow. The Kelly Clarkson song Before it was a One Direction song.

I love this song. Clarkson! I mean, it feels... I can just yell that. It feels like... It feels... 40-old version. No!

Kelly Clarkson! Feels like a Katie Perry song more than a Kelly Clarkson. Like, it's got that, like, Teenage Dream guitar intro. Oh, my gosh. This is such a Kelly Clarkson song. Are you kidding me? Yeah.

I mean, I just, I hear the teenage... dream guitar intro, but I wasn't surprised at all that it's a Kelly Clarkson song. I mean, it was supposed to be on stronger, right? And it leased or something. She demoed it. And then ended up just giving it to them, I kind of imagine, and this was why I say it's just such a Kelly Clarkson song, I imagine that was because it just sounds like so many other Kelly Clarkson songs.

And they'd been covering Kelly. But I mean, Zane owns this chorus, doesn't it? owns it, absolutely owns it. And Zane, I would say, and by the way, Zane is a controversial figure in the entire story of this band and everything that's happened since,

obviously. He's had some difficulty in his personal life, certainly. We're going to talk about all of that. I will say off the top, I have no problem discussing his musical contributions here. And he crushes this song.

And he had one of the better voices, early on, certainly. I would say him and Liam drove a lot of just sort of the vocals. And I think he sounds great in that song. I just think it has so much energy. I also think

and I don't blame the boys for this. I don't really blame anyone because there is a long and wonderful lineage of songs coming out of the the Max Martin tree, particularly sort of like poppy boy band songs that lyrically don't make a lot of sense.

There are definitely a few of those here, I will say. Tell me a lie makes sense. All of the sentences make sense. There's a theme to the song. I get what it's about. And in context, you get points for that. Fair enough. Is there anything else for you on this album?

And by the way, it was originally 13 songs when you sort of, the full extended version was 18, which is a lot for. first album. But is there anything else that comes close for you here? No. Really? I like up all night a good bit. There are quite a few songs where there are parts of them that I really, really adore and then other parts of them that are a little blah to me. I wonder if I shortchange certain songs that are on the poppier end of the spectrum, just because a lot of them sound the same to me. Yes.

Like when we get into the Everything About Yous, the Save You to Nights, the stole my hearts. It's kind of like... It's filler. Yeah. It's filler. It's like they've borrowed from the first half of the album. They give the boys a little bit of songwriting credit and they let them sort of take the songwriting out for a test drive. Stole my heart is Cruz's dynamite. I mean, it's the same song.

Yes. I mean, it's stunning that they didn't give them credit here. You know, we get into this world where, I mean, we'll say it about Ed Sheeran too. I mean, like, Ed himself has been dinged for lifting parts of, you know, Marvin Gaye song, for example. But I'm actually genuinely surprised that this album didn't become a target for a bunch of those copyright infringement lawsuits that we're seeing in the music industry because we're at this moment in time

where like just about everything has been written, right? There's only so many ways you can piece together like one, four, five chords, seven note scales, and create a song that sort of fits within the traditional chord structures of rock. And so so much of it gets repurposed.

And we see that here, in a lot of cases, but that song in particular for me, I was like, man, I just can't believe that they did that, right? Yeah, well, that song, there's also,

I got a lot of Katie Perry's firework in the bridge. For sure. For sure. The, like, up, up and away is that like, even brighter than the moon,

kind of a dub. But, yeah, so there was a little filler by the end, but, you know, they were messing around. How do you feel about same mistakes? This is a Ryan-Tetter tribute.

How so? It sounds like a Ryan Teter One Republic song for sure. But they definitely acknowledge that that's what this was. I think Zane's pre-chorus in this song is unstoppable. And then he's in the backing vocals at the end and sounds really good on that one too.

Yeah, I just can't get past the fact that it's a Ryan Teter song. I have that problem with a number of the songs on this thing. But look, put that aside. how, like, how are you not completely in love and awestruck with the song I should have kissed you? Oh my gosh. This, I can't believe how fucking good this song is. This is my favorite song on the album and it's not even close. They have never played it live.

It's like the cruel summer for me. Like, it was right there. It was right there. This song is badass. It was the B side of one thing. Like, they shoot fucking lasers at the 140 mark on the Is Your Heart Taken thing. All these lasers go off. It is cool as hell.

It's like a total bounce chorus. How did this thing get left on the cutting room floor? It just got stuffed at the end. When I first listened to this album, I thought, okay, I see what they do. They put the big hit they think first and then they put a huge hit last, right? And then I went and looked at the touring history. They've never played it. What's wrong?

My jaw is like on the floor right now. To be clear, I do not think this is a bad song by any means. I like it quite a bit. I have to go back and give this more time, apparently, because... This is my favorite one-direction song. What? Yes. Steal my girl, maybe.

But this is my favorite one-direction song. It's fucking awesome. I'm losing my favorite one-direction song. mind right now. It carries the album for me. It's barely on. It's not even on the album. How can it carry the album? It's the cruel summer and I want to rest my case on that, especially having gone through, you know, the rest of this stuff. I mean, Moments is an Ed Shearin song that was like, I guess, a reject. Don't want to be without you. My judgments clouded like tonight's sky. right? Moments actually made the set list for a little while, but it's Cold Place the Scientist. Again, Ed got shit for ripping off Marvin Gay. Why didn't he get shit for this? They literally say tears streamed down your face, which I know is right out of Fix You. Not, but even the snare hits at the end are borrowed from Scientist and Fix You. Like, Louis says this is his favorite. I guess maybe because this is where he actually gets to appear on this album. But this was like an Ed song that was,

supposedly never going to get used. I just can't believe, like, this made the set list, but I should have kissed you, didn't. I don't know. Paramore should cover I should have kissed you. Okay, I am later on going to make an argument for part of moments, although it does. You are?

I get, yeah, I get Ondante by Abba on the verses from that song. I have troubled feelings about the Ed Shear in One Direction. Tears streamed down the face. Give me a break, dude. I'm so into your love for I should have kissed you. That's awesome. I like it a lot. I will be honest.

I feel that there are seven of that song on this album, but you're making me want to go back and give it more time. Please, please, please spend a little bit more time with it. The question, though, is those are the best songs, fine, but what would we cut? And I do think on an album that ultimately is 18 songs long, there is stuff to cut. Nobody needs to get their feelings hurt

out in the 1D fandom because most of these songs the boys didn't write there's not a whole lot of like personal stuff but still like there's some stuff we could cut on this record, right? Yes. I can cut first and foremost,

I can cut taken. Oh, really? Yeah. Tell me why. So first of all, I do want to say. It's free falling. Yes, it is free falling. it's too mopey for my taste.

I do want to say this is the first song on the album where the boys are trying their hands at songwriting and I support them in what ultimately became a fruitful endeavor especially for a few of them in particular. Just a few, yep. But they co-wrote this altogether but also with Toby Gad who co-wrote all of me with John Legend. Yeah.

Love your curse. and all your edges all your perfect imperfections So like let's just set the bar here Right, right I mean Harry does come in pretty big here Yeah but I just I cannot take the words Who do you think you are?

Who do you think I am? Okay Really not in a lot of context Seriously at all I find the drumline Incredibly boring Like, it sounds like if you mess around on like garage band and just give it like a little metronomic thing, what it plays for you. It gives me a little bit of nickel back vibes on the bridge.

It's just like very mid tempo. I'm not having a good time. So like the 245 mark, Zane does this like bridge that is super third eye blind, whatever that song is wish, you would step back from that ledge, my friend, right? Jump friend, yeah. Yeah. They totally lifted that. Yeah, it's just very soft rock.

Yeah, that's fine. It's not my preference. Okay. Are there others that, I mean, I'll tell you this. I felt like save you tonight. Like, Cotech is on here, but we also have Red One, Beat Geek, Teddy Sky, Jimmy Joker.

Like, who the fuck are these guys? There's a lot of names to turn out what is just some filler. Like, this thing is filler. Yeah, particularly, like, Red One had a ton of hits with Lady Gaga and a bunch of other people, but like, just dance, bad romance, poker face. So, like, there's clearly the ability to work in that. But all these people took names like that. Yeah.

Right. Like, were those people or Lady Gaga's songs? That would be a good contest. Are those songwriters on the one day? Direction album or Lady Gaga's songs? That's a good point. That's a very good point. Like, who are all these people? Why does it take this many people to churn out blah? Well, like, okay, that's actually a really good point to make and we're going to get to

collaborators soon, but like so many people worked on this album. And it's more evidence of just the, this is a lab grown band. Right. Right. It's a petri dish that makes songs like another world, which you can also... pour out down the drain as far as I'm concerned. Okay, can I tell you why we have to keep save you tonight, though? Okay. The line, he's so overrated is the funniest thing in the world to me. That is the funniest way to diss somebody's boyfriend is to call them overrated.

First of all, because that's just only a term that we use, like, talking about athletes or sports. Right. Imagine saying that to somebody. That's hysterical. I want to know which, you know, Red One, Bluetooth, whichever writer came up with that is my hero.

I love it. I cannot part with it. Okay. So we're not parting with that. Are there any of the singles that you feel like we should eject? I mean, got to be you

or one thing or more than this? They got to stay as far as I'm concerned. So me too. if anything, there are some things that I don't love about Gotta Be You like at the end

of that song the production gets very strange. It turns into like a major laser track. There's like weird electronic sounds. Yeah,

they fire lasers. It's the same lasers they fire. And I should have kissed you. But I mean, this song sounds a little bit like bittersweet symphony to me.

Yeah, and it's, um, so Steve Mack who wrote the song had worked with like Westlake, had some boy band expertise. Also went on to write Shape of You with Ed Shearren. Yeah, and a moment like this. Kelly Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson! Yeah, Kelly Clarkson! I forgot about that. I do think that there's like, I like this song as an artifact.

because there are some real, like some of the most OG boy bandy moments on this album are in Gotta Be You. But like, I'll be here by your side. No more fears, no more crying. It's like as long as you love me. I'll be here by your side. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. I really like that song. You're right. No, I like the song. It's just lyrically, whatever. All right. And one thing you keep,

even though it feels a lot like I want it that way. Yeah, because it's just, I think it's okay that there are filler songs that are up-tempo on this, just because you end this album and you know kind of the personality of this group. Yeah. You probably knew it before based on being on Tumblr and Twitter and seeing their videos and stuff. But you can get, by the end of it, you kind of know, like, they want to have fun. There's a lot of, like, you know that John Mullaney joke

about how every song is about how we only have tonight and like people in their 30s don't relate to it because they would rather have a song that's like, we only have two weeks from now, oh, you can't do that.

You're in Dallas that week. Right. Because every new song is about how tonight is the night and how we only have tonight. That is such 19-year-old horse shit. I want to write songs for people, in their 30s called,

Tonight's No Good. How about Wednesday? I get a lot of that and like up all night, but also a lot of these songs. That's right. But I don't mind having a few of them. It's like I can sit here and say,

oh, it's a little bit repetitive. But then every single one of them, if they come on when I'm running, I'm like, let's go. Yeah. Well, you have to keep one thing because it's the first time we actually get a solo chorus

from Nile and Louis on this album. And we're three songs. sense. So we can't eject that one. I mean, look, I got to tell you the song that just grates on me that I know is you're going to reject.

But nah, nah, why did we have to have this song? We're like to answer the eternal question of if you are like, nah, nah, nah. Or if instead, you are like, yeah, yeah. But the band

already has enough lyrical fillers of ooze and yeah yes and nah nah where they're out of ideas I mean this song is dumb and it's a crotch thruster and I want to explode it like I can't it's just getting

exhausting at this point it feels like at this point in the album it felt like all right we're out of ideas but you know what they opened the tour with this song almost every time for me I was burnt out on it and that may be why I love I should have kissed you so much

because that's what follows it. But like there's something about this song that resonates with people that for me I just, ugh. So I'm going to say something that's going to make you really mad. Okay. That's how I feel about Harry Styles as Kiwi.

Almost exactly. Like, it is too over the top. It is too crotch-thirsty. Yeah. And then live, it rules. You're so mad.

I just... Okay, I'm sure maybe this song rules. Maybe there's something clever. I'm saying that about Harry. I don't think this... I like the song, though. And it's, here's the thing. No.

First of all, first of all, it was a bonus track. Let's acknowledge that they didn't put it on the original version of the album. So I think there's some self-awareness there that gets points. But they opened every show with it. But it's fun. it's fun and it's it has a sense of humor

I think you have to accept that it's campy the one that I feel that way about is stand up because like I can cut that song Really? First of all Yeah It should be called stick up

Right? Right is a stand up That's exactly my question Is a stand up the same as a stick up in England or something? Allegedly But Allegedly What does that mean?

Oh I don't think Sorry I didn't know Can we ask your cousin? No I don't think no, I think they just got it wrong. Like, I think it's just the wrong phrase. I kind of dig the chorus. So the other part in the song that, like,

I find really hysterical, but I think is objectively not well done. Right. When everything is sort of like, you get that it's kind of supposed to be a metaphor, and then I forget who sings the line, but all of a sudden it's like, and I will steal us a car.

Right. And it's just very, like, I'm going to do some crime now. Yeah. I do crimes for love. Here I am. I do like the sort of rock concert effect at the end where they're all clapping and repeating the lines.

But I also get mad at it because it ends on the line, Stole My Heart, which is the title of the song that comes before it. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. And there's some chord progressions across songs that are similar. I don't know. I mean, if we get too, too over.

picky about these things. I mean, look, I would have shot I wish into the universe, just because the tearing me apart lyrics sounds a lot like tearing up my heart by in sync, and it's hard to sort of get out of that. Why haven't we talked about I want?

I mean, besides the fact that it's definitely a queen song, it's the one really different song on this album. It's fun. Not everything you need, but you want accessories. Got to hold it in your hand. Yeah. I really like it. Okay. No, no, I really like it. And so Harry, one thing that I think is interesting about the song is Harry starts it.

Give you this, give you that blow a kiss, take it back if I look inside your brain. Yes, a rarity. Which doesn't happen that often. It's usually Liam. It's almost always Liam. But this, it is kind of that like queen or panic at the disco, like, Almost theatrical thing. Yes. And I think you, like, Harry was probably just kind of game for anything. You need someone who can pull that off. I don't know that Liam could have, even though he was a better singer at that point,

I don't know that Liam could have pulled off the attitude for this. And I think it's cool that they tried it. And I think it's fun and it's silly. And, um... All right. So we're keeping that one for sure. Oh, I'm totally keeping it. But it sounds like we have some loose agreement on everything about.

you another world. You want to eject taken. I want to inject nah, nah, nah. We're not going to agree on that. Save you tonight you made a pleading case for. All right. Yeah, I can part with another world. It's not me.

It's not you. There's me. It has the in sync. It's going to be me. Beatbox intro. Yeah. A lot of like never stop, never stopping on that one.

I can say goodbye. Well, all of these songs. do have a very interesting... They all work together. Sonically, this is not a schizophrenic album, even though, as we talked about, they worked with a lot of people.

There are fingerprints and palm prints and cooks in the kitchen from different people all over this album. So I guess my question to you is who in the aggregate is their most important collaborator. Well, so in terms of the writing and the production, the initial core group is that group of Savan and Rami Akub and Carl Falk,

who are all from the Cherian Studios tree. And that seems to be sort of their initial team when they're actually in the studio and working on this stuff. But we got to talk about Simon Cowell. like there's sort of no way around this like he Frankenstein all five of them together

did he or was it Nicole Scherzinger because Scherzinger's taking credit for this shit which like clear up the mystery for me I mean I don't really think I can it does seem to be look I don't want to be sort of overly generous to Simon Cowell here who at this point has basically no relationship with the guys and

he signs them the record label and... Right. I would say if you watch the show, it seems fairly clear that it was his idea and that he actually did it. Now, she claims that she was the one who at some point had the idea of...

Right. Oh, shouldn't you put all five of them together and... Wouldn't that be great? Maybe they could be a little boy band. Unfortunately, if that happened, nobody was rolling the tape. I would say even if that did happen, the fact of the matter is

not that long after that, Simon was the one who had a much stronger footprint. Yeah, they gave Simon the credit in the movie, at least. They let him go on camera and say, it took me 10 minutes to figure this out because I'm genius. Well, right. And look, if Nicole Scherzinger was the one who did that, she let them out of her grasp.

Yeah. And it's possible that if that happened, it was very much for the worst, right? because there's, again, no current relationship between Simon and the guys now. They've done their solo projects totally outside of his orbit. And that seems largely to be a byproduct of how they were treated when they were under his management and the management that he set them up with. I think mainly because just the touring and recording schedule that they had to do to keep it going, was insanely nonstop.

Yeah, I think I disagree with your premise that they had to. Sure. No, that's a poor choice of words. They were put in... No, I know what you meant. But they were put into that position as young kids who didn't know any better. And as we'll see, they put out an album a year,

they do a world tour a year. They do not have time to be human beings. And it is the source of the fissures that ultimately crack up the band, to say the least. but in this moment, I think you're exactly right. Let me ask you this. Did it matter that they came in third? Like, if they'd won, would it have been substantively different?

I don't like to say is, this is just the beginning for these boys. There have been absolute truthers. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for one direction. I actually think it might have been worse. Because I think, again, there's something about them, and all of them are good-looking guys. Right. Like, clearly they were in a position where they believed in themselves and people around them believed in them enough that they were trying out for the X factor. In Liam's case, he'd done it before. But it let them have an underdog story. And I just think it was so important to... Something to get behind. Yeah. It felt like a fan creation. And now I guess if they'd won, it would have been like that's still a fan creation.

in a sense. Yeah, but it was already off. Yeah, I think you're right. I think there was this thing that they always needed the fans for them to achieve what their ceiling potentially was if they had a ceiling, right?

And so coming in third meant, hey, the fans had to sort of go out and fight to show that they had deserved to be first and they just harness the energy perfectly. Right. But yeah, so I think I think this is where

Simon fits in. I do think we shouldn't short change and I don't think we are the group, particularly Saven, but also like there's a great video of Carl Fault giving Nile guitar lessons.

Yeah. When they're just starting out. And so I think those guys were kind of like Papa bearing them and getting them started writing songs, although they didn't write with them. but it seemed like they were helping sort of school them

a little bit at that point in their careers. For sure. Savin has said that one of the things that makes Max Martin a master craftsman is that he's actually able to teach his craft and he taught it to these three. And in turn, I think they took the responsibility of starting to teach these guys how to write songs and we'll see that start to blossom on future albums.

So that's the most important collaborator. Now we're going to do our little moment where we go through and identify from this particular era. And these eras are short. That's what's hard about this. We've got like nine to 12 months for crying out loud. This album comes out in the U.S. in March, and they're going to put out another one in November in the U.S.

I mean, it's just unprecedented. But we're trying to find... We're going to talk more about this later on when they've been at it a little bit longer, but it's not just the touring and recording schedule. it's not just sort of like, oh, they don't get to be normal teenagers. It's, it's inhumane. Like, when you start to do the math and go, okay, how many hours did these guys have to sleep?

Yeah. It just is, it is so different from what most artists on that scale, even ones who work really, really hard. Yeah. They went off to audition for the X Factor and they never came home. Yeah. Yeah. And at that age. But we'll, I think that obviously creates more and more of a, takes more and more of a toll.

So we'll spend more time with that in later episodes. But for now, what's your peak Harry moment? Well, look, I was going to go with you. They do all these little game show videos as part of the X Factor stuff. And Harry isn't involved in them, but they always declare him the winner. And they're sort of cute celebrations. But I think for me, it's Harry goes out on tour. And when he sings, it's guys. to be you in concert, he changes the words at the end to big brown poo instead of it's got to be you. I think he makes a few other insertions there, but I think it's the big brown poo that is to be carry for me. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. They have a long and beautiful history of messing around with lyrics, yeah, to keep it fresh. Mine comes two minutes and 25 seconds into the music video for what makes you beautiful. It's coming right out of the bridge. And I know I said,

that I think pains were taken to not give that video a super clear female lead, not present an image of any of those boys with a young woman who seemed to be setting sort of an unreachable standard for a fan to see themselves in.

However, coming out of the bridge, Harry has the lone clear romantic moment with a young lady while he sings the breakdown before the final chorus, Baby, you light up my world like nobody else. Baby, you light up my world like nobody else. The way that you flip, your hair gets me overwhelmed. When you smile at the ground, it ain't hard to tell. And in that moment, he is inevitably destined to be the heartthrob of the band.

Now, again, I really think that that One Direction was presented as an entity in which there was no Justin Timberlake. But if there was going to be one, we look to that moment and we see Destiny. Okay. Okay. I think there are going to be a lot of peak hairy moments. This is going to be a harder thing for us to pick out. Not a hard thing for us to pick out. What is going to be hard for us is the peak Louis moments. because there is nothing. He's like invisible on this record. He's just so clearly being hidden. He's got some of the best energy in the group.

So you said there's no Joey Faton. I think he's sort of Joey Faton in this moment. Now, look, we know he's going to go on and write like over half of the songs on a bunch of the albums that are going to come. So he's got some influence. But it's just not going to be about his voice, right? He just isn't there. I think on the debut album, Harry gets,

like seven minutes worth of solos. Liam gets seven minutes worth of solos. Zane gets five and a half. Louis has a minute and a half. Nile has a minute and a half. So Nile and Louis are getting out sung by like four, five, six to one on this album. And it is for a reason.

And you've got to go back to that audition tape to understand it. But I guess if we have to pick one, for me, it's that he's always driving in their videos. And in the got to be you video, he broke a mini cooper supposedly. I don't know how you break a mini cooper. Maybe it's super easy to

break of Mini Cooper because it's mini. But he's driving in like half their videos even though he doesn't take the wheel in any

songs. And so I love this idea that he actually broke the car. So there might be a theme here that Louis is a little klutzy because

mine was when they're at Simon's house on the X Factor and he injures his foot by stepping on a sea urchin and they have to like waddle him up like on the guy's

shoulders to Simon and be like, I hurt my foot. I can see which one got stung What did you do? It was a... It's painful. Very, very painful.

You right now? Yeah, good. Yeah. It's good hijinks. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. There's lots to come for Louis. This is not an album that features him,

but there is lots to come for Louis. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just the next couple albums we're going to see that he's still in the artist development phase, which is ironic because he's the oldest, right? But I do think he's probably undervalued if you just listen to this album, you'd be like, okay, you could throw him away,

but I think he is an important part of the group going forward. Liam, on the other hand, peak Liam, I mean, for me, it's the undeniable Justin Bieber blow-dry haircut, but it's also like he leads off every song. Why is this? Do you understand it, Nora? How was this honor bestowed upon him? He's the best singer.

He has the most developed voice at this point. I mean, Oh, I don't agree with you about that. Who do you think it is? It is Zane and it's not even close. But I don't think, so Zane had sort of a richness and texture and vocal quality that the rest of them did not have. But there was a lot of, I mean, there was sort of a narrative on the X Factor show that that Zane sort of struggled with. Dancing.

Timing a little bit. Well, they all struggled with dancing. but Liam was the most Okay, I'll rephrase. Liam was the most polished singer. Liam was the one who I think could when at the start of a song And there's a lot less production going on

There's a lot less stuff underneath the vocal to hide behind. Liam was the one who consistently kick it off And he was the one who'd been there before. I think his audition is pretty clearly the best. Maybe you disagree, but I really feel like he's the one who sounds like, oh, that's a really good singer.

Okay. He's got the lower range that really is required to start out all of these songs. Yeah. You know, he can drop the first girl, you know? He knows what he's doing. Totally. That's what I have, too,

because there was this brief moment at the outside of One Direction where even if Harry was sort of the budding heartthrob, like Liam was kind of the frontman if there was one. You said Justin Bieber hair. The thing that I think is hysterical about it is that he had Harry's hair. Okay.

Like, you know, there's, I think it was, there's like a Rolling Stone profile of Harry Styles that like Cameron Crow did and it's sort of wacky. But there's a line in it where he says that his, that Harry's hair is like invariably described as tussled. Yeah. Liam's hair at this point was tussled. Okay. Okay. It looks like Bieber to me, but what do I know? So, what's Peak Nile then?

So, Nile... Is it the YouTube video of him learning the guitar? I don't... That's not what I chose, although I think that that's very valid. Okay. But... What did you choose? I chose his, I chose his, like, respect for the boy band lineage.

Because Nile, first of all, he arrives on the set of the X Factor with legitimate frosted tips. Very unfortunate. I don't really know if it helps when they bleach his hair. He looks like less of a lepracon. He's the only one where when they did This Is Us, the sort of like

docu concert movie, he's the only one who's like, yeah, I love boy bands. Boy bands rule. Like, I love the backstreet boys. Zane is like, well, we're a cool boy band, so it doesn't matter. Yeah, he's sort of... I'm into it. He's sort of wonderfully unafraid to celebrate the boy band. He just wants to be a star.

Which, like, he almost got kicked off. Like, Katie Perry is the reason he even went through. She didn't think he was really talented enough to do it. And she sort of got, like, crowd pressured into saying yes. I'll agree with Cheryl. You do need more experience. And, by the way, just if you're likable, likableness is not going to sell records.

It's talent. And you have a state of it. The one. Of course, you're in. Yeah, she was like, I can't, this tiny Irish child, I can't send him back. Yeah. Yeah. De Wollinger.

Who knows what they'll do to him? Yeah. No, I think he brings something essential in that. I think especially early on when there are more of those sort of croony, backstreety vibes to it. think it's important. But I also think him getting the guitar lesson is a good entry because he does, he is the only one who starts to occasionally appear on stage holding an instrument. Yes. Yeah, we're not going to see much of him, but he's building up some authenticity as actual like musician, isn't he? Right. And it's interesting to look back on because if you had told

me in 2011 or 2012 or 2013 or 2015, for that matter, that of those boys, there were going to be two who were going to have really successful solo careers. There's no way you say not. And one of those two is going to be Nile? I know. It's incredible. But that's what's cool about him. He's like authentically putting in the work.

That's why I like the video where he's learning the guitar part for one thing as his sort of peak moment because he's not in front. He's excited and positive attitude and a little mischie. us for sure, but he's putting in the work and honing his skill, honing his craft, and his really best moments are going to come when he's out of the band. But this is a guy who starts small and continues to build. There's just, as always, there's something about him, right? And that's what the judges on the X Factor saw. They couldn't exactly put their finger on and they just gave him a chance. And he eventually blossoms into being, you know, an artist who really matters. Right. And there's this seed of something really means.

musical that he's clearly working at. And I'm not going to lie to you. I don't think that it was really visible in the moment. But now you can look back and go, okay. Yeah. I am, I am a Nile head, I will say. Are you a Zane head? Um, wow. I think it's harder to be. So musically, yes. And he's clearly a complicated figure. He's only going to get more complicated. He's been through a lot. he's also been part of some ugly situations. He's even at this point, sort of distinct from the group in a couple ways. One, he's the only one with a really distinctive voice

in a way that I think on this album is invaluable to them. I don't know how they pull this off if they don't have Zane, frankly, because there would be in something that is sort of bordering on too mechanical, too repetitive, to one note. he is the one who gives them some texture. He can do a vocal run, even now.

You can also see in the sort of backstage X-Factor stuff. You can see it in the movie. He is not of the same personality type as the other four. He's not as extroverted. He's not as class clown. He is not comfortable in those moments, is he?

You can see it on film. The other thing that he, that I don't think was as visible at the time as that stuff was that he was interested in doing music that maybe sounded different from this stuff, more so than the rest of the guys. Now, I think at this point, that I guess you could have imagined

that that might be the case just because if there was anyone who was giving them, just little notes of R&B influenced texture, awareness of hip-hop. or sort of contemporary pop, it was Zane. I don't think that you could really tell on this that there are sort of desires,

musical desires that are not being met for him in doing this, but you can sort of, again, go back and understand that a little bit. His voice is sort of my peak for him here and just the fact that he could stand out when the rest of them, it can be hard to tell their voices apart. And I actually think that works for them.

But the texture that, you know, he brings it to the bridge of got to be you. He drives a ton of Tell Me a Lie, as we talked about, which is a song that I absolutely love. I wish. I really like. And he starts and finishes that. That's absolutely one of my favorites. I think he and Harry crush the bridge of that song, which is really why I like that song. is because of the bridge.

You get the same thing. More than this, he has those little accent backing vocals in the bridge. He's got the high note on the pre-chorus of same mistakes that we talked about. Yeah, that's for me where you go, wow.

Yeah. Is that your peak? No, my peak is the SNL performance because through so many of the videos that we see, he's just not comfortable. But on that stage, he's wearing the red jacket,

his hair's blown up like Elvis, and he stands out. You know, it helps that he's got the higher parts, but Harry's wearing the red pants to his red suit jacket and a bow tie. He's struggling, Harry's struggling a little bit to sing the low register stuff

other than the hook. And the choreography's like hilariously bad. We all know at this point, like they hate to dance and they're notoriously bad at it. But Zane is in his element there. And he looks, and he sings like a star.

And for me, the journey from that moment where I felt like he was the most refined best singer ready to go. And the journey that we're going to go through over the next series of albums and into his solo career and some of the things that you referenced is one of the most interesting narrative lines in one direction because he was very, very, very soft clay. and the way that the group was worked turned Harry into one thing,

and it turned Zane into something else. And in that moment on SNL... Yeah, certainly. And all of them, obviously. But in that moment on SNL, it looks to me like he's the one that you'd bet on, and where we go from here will be an interesting journey. He did. I don't know what it was about that appearance on SNL that worked for him, but there's even a moment during that.

I forget which song it is, but one of them, he pokes Harry in the cheek when Harry's going to sing. And it's just this very little charming moment. Right. But it's the type of moment that would be really,

really, really, really on brand for the group, but less on brand for Zane. But there was something, like, he seemed to be very comfortable on SNL that night. I have no idea why.

But that's interesting that you chose that. Yeah. we have a category called Are Any of These Songs About Taylor Swift? And Nora, I need to ask you in this moment Are any of these songs about Taylor Swift? No.

This is going to be important, though. And there is a Katie Perry reference. There is. And it sounds to me like the lyric is Katie Perry's on replay, but if you really listen to it for the first time, it sounds like Katie Perry's overplayed. She's overplayed.

Oh my God. I can't get that out of my head. Okay, I've never heard it that way. Go back. You're going to listen to that and you're going to listen to I Should Have Kissed You. That's your homework after this pod, Nor. That's the Starbucks lovers of this album. But no, none of these songs are about Taylor Swift.

Okay, we also have a category called What Happened on March 25th, which in this moment in 2011, like, I don't know, we're in the middle of the Arab Spring. There isn't, this does, however, become a very important date. actually going to release the album in the U.S. on the 23rd of March, it got moved up. But like, probably because the leak or something, there was demand that was so significant, they had to move it up. But for you, I mean, this is going to be an important category down the road, right? This is the sort of tinfoil hat conspiracy theory number in the fan base. Okay, except that it is backed up with actual events that happened on actual March 25th in

our world's history. That's what QAnon says to. important date, very important date in One Direction history, but not yet. Okay. Nothing important happened on March 25th. Okay. We'll visit this category soon. So then who won the album?

For me, it's got to be Harry. I just, I think, but Zane's not far behind. I just, the fact that you're going to make a case for Liam, I think. But the fact that, like, we think that Harry won this for me is probably why Zane starts to build up so much resentment. But Harry's singing to the girl in the video. For me, Harry's in the center when they're on Saturday Live. He seems to be the one that they're pushing.

But you tell me, who won the album? So you're right. I'm saying, Liam, I just think he did so much to anchor them. He got them started. Wow. He just was ready. And they were not, like, this all happened so, so, so, so fast. Yeah.

And it's a little heartbreaking. It's actually very heartbreaking for me to think about just sort of how much of a toll the whole experience of their schedule and what happened to their lives took on him because it did seem like not in age, but if there was kind of like a big brother in the band initially, it was him, even though he was also such like a baby face. But he did a lot of the sort of foundation building work for them, I think. and I think that should be recognized. I'll tell you who lost the album. Matt Cardle, who's the guy who won the X Factor that year. Oh, he totally lost the album. Sorry, Matt.

What happened to him? Yeah. Not a lot. Super tough break. Well, look, nobody cares. That's why it doesn't matter that they didn't win. All right, we've got a category called swooniest lyric, but I think you're going to do the swooniest lyric.

and I'm going to do the like most gag-a-ful lyric or like lyric that really made me angry. Okay, that's fine. But I just know, even if it's not your plan, there's going to be an episode this season where you're going to come and you're going to be like, all right, I've got to admit it. This one tugs at my heartstrings. Okay. We'll see. We'll see. What's the swooniest lyric, Nora?

Okay. So we talked about how corny What Makes You Beautiful Really is I do think there's some sort of weird Secret sauce to you don't know you're beautiful That's what makes you beautiful Yeah

But my real pick, my hipster pick Is the bridge from moments Ed Shearren song Yeah well okay I don't like the verses to this song at all Well it's an Ed Shearin, right? I mean it's cramming a bunch of words into a song

Yeah but I think So that's what happens on the bridge of this song is that there's a numb in my toes standing close to the edge. There's a pile of my clothes at the end of your bed as I feel myself fall, make a joke of it all.

There's a numb in my toes standing close to the edge. There's a pile of my clothes. I think that works for them. It's like a little bit more mature. It's a little bit more specific detail than we tend to get. I think it pushes them vocally a little bit.

Yeah. And I do give Ed credit. I don't know. I go back and forth on if Ed was like, what I would theoretically give Ed cheer and credit for is looking at those guys and saying, oh, they could do kind of this big arena folk pop thing that he kind of asks them to do here

and as they continue to work together, that tone comes up. And then I think there are moments later on where the guys learn a lesson from that make it their own. And I think when they make it their own, it's far, far, far more successful than it ever really is when they're actually working with Ed Shearin. But I do think he planted a seed that led to some good things. Again, there are parts of this song that I really don't like.

But I really love the bridge. Okay. I'm just going to admit that. That's fine. You can admit that. You're not going to be surprised to hear that the gag-iest moment for me is we're like, nah, nah, nah. Then we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I just can't. iconic. We're like no, nah, I just can't. I can't. Nor, it's that time.

It's that time. This is where we grade the album. And this is a new thing for us because, you know, the album is only one part of their story. But I want to hear your grade first because I heard a lot of love

for the first single. I did not hear a ton of love for the rest of the album. Where do you come out? I gave you so much love for the rest of the album. Great. Give me a grade. Okay.

I'm giving it a... I'm giving it a B minus. Whoa! Really? I don't know. So this is hard for me. You gotta go back and listen to I should have kissed you. You think I'm grading too harshly.

This album fucking rules. Like half of it. Yeah. Half of it is... I'm trying to be an... honest greater. I love this album. Okay. We only do podcasts about albums that we love. Well, but that's why we got to stay somewhat honest. So you give this a B minus. All right. Maybe I give it a B.

So I wrote, I'm going to be honest with you, on my notes it says B and then I was trying to be cool. Okay. I give it a B. You were trying to be like, nah, nah, nah, nah. And then you were like, yeah, yeah. I gave it a B plus. So now I'm like, nah, nah, nah. I gave it a B plus. and I gave it a B plus because I think it starts and ends unbelievably strong. I am a fan of the first, you know, five songs on this album, which includes the first four single. I like the Ryan Tetter hat tip and same mistakes for sure. I like I want.

I think it's terrific. I totally run out of gas after same mistakes. Save you tonight. Stole my heart. Stand up, okay, I like the chorus a little bit. The moments thing just pisses me off because it's cold play stolen by Ed Sheeran. Another world put it in the top. trash.

Nah, no, no, stay away from me. But then I should have kissed you. I mean, it just, it's, it really is. Yeah, it's like a cruel summer for me. And it pulls the entirety of this album up. I like the energy.

I like the hookiness. And I think, not to hat tip too much, but I think as we get into the second album, this one is going to feel like a really authentic harnessing of kids in their moment. And, you know, from here, they're going to make these guys record their ass off for the next four years.

And we're going to hear the way that that starts to shape their singing, their songwriting, and the like. So for me, this is a B plus. Okay. All right. We did it. We did it. I'm just amazed that you came in higher than I did. It's almost a first.

Yeah, it really is. It's almost a first. Now I feel like I'm short changing them. I love this album, but I'm sticking with it. Gotta stick with my God here, even though I technically changed my grade. Nathan, what a joy to be back and talking to you about songs.

My favorite pastime. Me too. We're on our way. We are on our way. This has been every single album One Direction. I'm Nora Prince Yati. He's Nathan Hubbard. We will be back later this week with an episode on Take Me Home,

One Direction's second album. Maybe you can listen to that in the car on the way to Coachella or whatever else you're doing this weekend. Thank you, as always, to Kaya McMullen for producing. See you later.