And I felt like the only music you could really do that with is fun, poppy guitar songs. I felt like a kid again when I was around them. “Me and Simon would talk about how was Beatlesque, Monkees-esque,” Kotecha continues. Instead, the reference points for 1D went all the way back to the source of contemporary boy bands. In 2010, Kotecha remembers, “everybody was doing this sort of Rihanna dance pop.” But that just wasn’t a sound One Direction could pull off (the Wanted did it only once) and famously, they didn’t even dance. The common thread linking all great boy bands, from New Kids to BSB, he says, is, “When they’d break, they’d come out of nowhere, sounding like nothing that’s on the radio.” He first witnessed their power back in the Eighties, when New Kids on the Block helped his older sister through her teens. Kotecha, who met 1D on The X Factor and shepherded them through their first few years, is a devoted student of the history of boy bands. One Direction’s songs were great and their charisma and chemistry undeniable, but what made them stick was a sound unlike anything else in pop - rooted in guitar rock at a time when that couldn’t have been more passé. It’d been a decade since the heyday of ‘NSync and Backstreet Boys, and the churn of generations demanded a new boy band.
Between that date and their last live performance (so far, one can hope) on December 31st, 2015, they released five albums, toured the world four times - twice playing stadiums - and left a trove of Top 10 hits for a devoted global fan base that came to life at the moment social media was redefining the contours of fandom. July 23rd marks One Direction’s 10th anniversary, the day Simon Cowell told Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson that they would progress on The X Factor as a group. It’s a midtempo headbanger that captures the essence of what One Direction is, and always was: One of the great rock & roll bands of the 21st century. It was never a single, but became a fan-favorite live-show staple. “Better Than Words,” closed One Direction’s third album, Midnight Memories. “And if you’re sort of winking at it, laughing at it - we were probably joking, ‘What if “More than a feeling”? Well, that would actually be tight!’” “Songs in general, you’re just sort of waiting for an idea to bonk you on the head,” Ryan says from a Los Angeles studio, with Bunetta. Most of it was mumbled - a temporary place-holder - but there was one phrase: “Better than words …” A few hours later, on the bus to another city, another show - Bunetta and Ryan can’t remember where - Liam asked, maybe having a laugh, “What if the rest of the song was just lyrics from other songs?”įlashback: Tina Turner Covers Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson on Debut Solo Album
At one point, Liam got up to use the bathroom, and when he re-emerged, he was singing a melody.
The second takes place a few years later: Another hotel room in England - this one in Manchester - where songwriters and producers Julian Bunetta and John Ryan were throwing back Cucumber Collins cocktails and tinkering with a beat.
The first will be familiar to any fan: Songwriter and producer Savan Kotecha was sitting on the toilet in a London hotel room, when he heard his wife say, “I feel so ugly today.” The words that popped into his head would shape the chorus of One Direction’s unforgettable 2011 debut, “What Makes You Beautiful.” A bathroom figures significantly in the origin stories of at least two classic One Direction songs.