Why You Should Be Listening To One Direction Right Now
“When the night is coming down on you
We will find a way through the dark”
Picture This: It’s a cold, unremarkable day and the grey clouds are weeping onto my bedroom windows. My eyes ache from too much screen time, I’m in desperate need of a haircut, and One Direction’s “Happily” is playing loudly from my phone, somehow making everything a little more bearable.
I wasn’t really a One Direction fan when they were making music. I found them to be cliche, saw myself as above their boy band-charm, and did an unnecessarily dramatic eye roll every time they came on the radio. Despite this, I saw them twice with my sister, subconsciously knew the lyrics to every single song, and in the later days of the band, always admired Harry Styles’ style from afar. Yet, when the UK fell into another lonely lockdown, I strangely found myself listening to the band on repeat. Every day. For several months.
I know what you’re thinking: they haven’t performed together since 2015 and I should really be moving on with my life, (preferably to their subsequent solo albums). But as everything seemingly falls apart around us, listening to One Direction’s epic discography has surprisingly been the perfect escapism from the weight of the real world. An escape, I would highly recommend.
The nostalgia which comes from each of their songs is electric, memories of dancing in the living room to “Story Of My Life”, screaming out “History” on road trips, and first watching the “Night Changes” music video. These memories are untarnished by global pandemics and daily uncertainty. They’re like images in a snow globe, perfectly protected and safe from the (dare I say unprecedented?) reality of 2021.
As someone who spends a lifetime daydreaming about the future, looking back to the past has become more and more appealing as the image of the future is now impossible to conjure. One Direction is part of that past for me; I was eight or nine when their first album came out and truly haven’t stopped listening since.
You see, when “Perfect” or “Infinity” is playing, I’m not sitting in my room alone surrounded by potentially pointless revision, or scrolling meaninglessly on TikTok. I’m in my friend May’s house dancing by her piano and laughing so hard I’ve convinced myself I’m going to have a heart attack. I’m driving home from dropping my sister off at university for the very first time, my Mum teary in the driver's seat beside me. I’m walking home, arm in arm, with my friends after eating Fish and Chips on a damp park bench in the middle of December. I’m living life as I used to know it, as we all used to know it, my innocence still relatively intact, my heart a little less lonely. “Strong” and “What A Feeling” take me back to those moments and we need that more than ever, to be reminded what it was like to live fully and beautifully without second-guessing every step we took. We have to remember how much we loved the mundanity of it all, so one day, when it gets better, we can appreciate it so much more.
I would also care to estimate that ninety-five percent of One Direction’s discography is about young love, both the sweet process of falling and the eventual heartbreak. Young love is wholesome, sweet, delicate, honest. All the things the world seems to not be at the moment. Their work isn’t heavy or academic, it’s just good, old-fashioned pop music which makes you smile, dance. We all spend a lot of time desperately trying to prove we’re different from everybody else – we’re free thinkers, independent, we don’t follow the crowd. We don’t like that film, this band, that jacket – they’re too mainstream, too trendy, too mundane. We don't feel secure in loving anything ‘popular’ anymore for fear of a chorus of scrutiny.
I suppose that’s why I’m writing this - to give you full and complete permission to listen to, and love, One Direction without any judgment. I give you permission to watch their ‘Carpool Karaoke’ seven times in a row, listen to Louis’ bridge in “18” on repeat and spend all day learning to play “If I Could Fly” on the piano. I give you permission to turn to whatever positive thing is keeping you going right now. Bake banana bread weekly, binge-watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians, become TikTok famous with videos of your cat. Follow the trends, fall in love with a boyband – do whatever makes you feel like you can float easier when things seem to be drowning.
When restrictions are lifted and the world finally exhales, who knows, I might leave ‘Little Things’ and “Midnight Memories” behind me, leaving them as another snow globe labeled “lockdown (2? 3? I’ve lost count).” I might carry them with me, allow them to soundtrack the million memories I hope to make in the real world again. Either way, One Direction might just be another cheesy, manufactured boyband to most, but give their music (or someone else equally nostalgic) a try again. Just once, during one of the many lonely moments of isolation. Wander through their discography and see what you find. Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s escapism, maybe it’s pure and complete hatred. Press shuffle and see what happens.
“We’re only getting older baby,
Does it ever drive you crazy,
Just how fast the night changes”