One Direction – Take Me Home

Whether you like it or not, you have already taken One Direction home. They’re on your TV, in your newspapers, clouding your Twitter feeds and littering your Facebook walls. That annoying tune you can’t shake out of your head when you’re trying to sleep at night? Yes, that’s them too, and the band’s new album, Take Me Home, continues where the band left off.

Take Me Home is the hormonally-charged second album from the quintet and, though it will no doubt be essential listening for any girl under the age of 14, it’s almost identical to their debut album Up All Night, with the usual tales of summer loves and pretty girls. Live While We’re Young is a little bit raunchier than we’ve seen the band be before, but the dance-pop tune lacks the drive needed to entertain an older audience. Their second single, Little Things, has already reached number one in the UK singles chart; the ballad offers a well-needed (if not a little nauseating) break from incessant cheery pop. Lines such as “you can’t go to bed without a cup of tea,” are rather cringeworthy but will surely have tweenagers swooning all over the world.

Kiss You is another catchy tune that will be clogging up the airwaves in the months to come, but tracks like Rock Me and They Don’t Know About Us, though offering a heavier melody, share too many similarities to the songs that brought One Direction fame. As a whole, the album is a perfectly fine, very well-produced medley of dance-pop beats, it’s not at all bad but it’s not revolutionary either.

Love them or hate them, you have to take One Direction for what they are: a boy band. Their music will be cheesy, their outfits will be co-ordinated and unless you’re a teenage girl, it might be best to stay away. However, the global phenomenon that One Direction has created rivals the likes of certain boy-bands that dominated the charts in the 90s. Take Me Home has already broken into the top five of almost every album chart on the globe; the band might not be truly creative or inventive but it is hard to argue with such universal success. 

Take the album in drips and drabs and maybe you’ll find your toes tapping (just a little bit…) but be warned, listen to it in one go and it is as sickly and as saccharine as to be expected. 

Verdict: ●●●

Caitlin Middleton

Watch the video for new single Little Things here: