Can One Direction's new album convert middle-aged Jason Johnson?

Nov 26, 2014 06:00 am

One Direction's new album Four is already a hit, just a week after its release.

It has already gone Gold in the UK and is expected to top the Billboard 200 chart this week.

As if all that weren't enough, the boys from the UK quintet - Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan - also cleaned up at the recent American Music Awards.

In addition to Artist Of The Year, they also won Favourite Pop Group and Favourite Pop Album for their previous record Midnight Memories.

Of course, none of this means much to me.

As a 46-year-old man and father of two tween boys, I am the exact opposite of your typical One Direction fan, who is, of course, young and female.

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That said, I'm open-minded when it comes to music, especially when my editor commands me to be.

So here's one old dude's take on 1D and Four. Can the fab five win me over?

1. IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO WRITE A POP SONG, APPARENTLY

It's not really a big deal when a pop act don't write their own songs

The weird thing about One Direction is that it takes a minimum of five people to write every tune.

Steal My Girl, for example, was written by six people - Tomlinson and Payne as well as four songwriting ringers.

The four guys, John Ryan, Julian Bunetta, Ed Drewett and Wayne Hector, make their living writing for acts like One Direction, The Wanted and Olly Murs.

Steal My Girl is a great song, but it took only one guy to write Bach's Requiem Mass - Bach.

This was supposed to be the album where One Direction had more control of the music, but their writing credits are few and far between.

2. I FEEL LOVED

I've been sitting here for the last four hours listening to Four, and I have to tell you, I feel pretty good.

I feel like One Direction really gets me.

Sometimes they may do something mean like break up with me, but then I know they'll always come looking for me again, like in Where Do Broken Hearts Go.

"Now I'm searching every lonely place/ Every corner calling out your name/ Trying to find you but I just don't know/ Where do broken hearts go?"

It makes me feel that One Direction values my love and understands my heart.

It's a special bond between me and One Direction.

No one else understands us and our relationship.

3. I CAN'T TELL ANY OF THEIR VOICES APART

I don't understand why there needs to be five guys in One Direction when they all seem to sound about the same.

In their new single Night Changes, it's honestly impossible to tell who's who.

It's not like they're in a barbershop quartet doing lots of crazy harmonies; they basically just take turns singing the lyrics one at a time.

All of their voices seem to be in about the same register, with no one singing especially high or low.

Are these guys so lazy that one guy can't sing one song all the way through?

How many One Direction guys would it take to screw in a light bulb?

My guess is five.

4. CLOUDS IS A GENUINELY AWESOME SONG

The last track on Four is called Clouds and it's amazing.

The chorus is just killer: "We're never coming back down/ Yeah we're looking down on the clouds".

It's uplifting and you can hear an actual guitar. The guitar hook is a mini masterpiece, a simple little arpeggio that comes in at just the right moment at the end of the chorus.

Clouds has an anthemic quality that I love and the vocal melody is interesting and dynamic.

Great stuff!

5. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO HATE ONE DIRECTION

Almost all the songs on Four may sound kinda the same, but they're all kinda good in the same way.

The various arrangements are creative. The tempo is always peppy. The lyrics are well-articulated.

Say what you will, it's solid pop music.

That said, the best thing about Four is probably still the cover.

These guys have so much visual charisma that they could do polka music and still sell albums.

As a younger man, I fell for Japanese girl group MAX based largely on their looks, and it's so easy to imagine girls falling under One Direction's spell in the same way.

Nothing wrong with that.

This is the cutest and bestest bubblegum pop group going.