Rating: N
On their third album, One Direction’s gone from pop-pop to pop-rock. But they didn’t get there on their own. There’s borrowing in pop music and there’s blatant, unashamed ripping off. Here, 1-D are too close to the latter from the get-go.
The opening strains of Best Song Ever (it is not) – while also managing to sound like a Microsoft pre-roll ad – steals the beginning and characteristic three-chord combo of the Who’s Baba O’Riley. And the title track is so similar to Joan Jett’s I Love Rock N’ Roll, you half-wonder if it’s supposed to be a cover.
Then there are the blurred lines: Little White Lies is a little much for an impressionably aged fan base: “You say you’re a good girl // but I know you would girl // You wanna make some rules now // Cool, then we’ll watch them break // tonight.” (Whatever happened to no means no?)
If maturing means 14 (regular edition) tracks of footy-stadium-worthy anthemic choruses ad nauseam, I don’t want 1-D to grow up.
Top track: Diana
One Direction play the Rogers Centre on August 1.