Review - One Direction - Take Me Home

As is typical for so many Top 40-reaching pop albums, the first three songs off One Direction’s sophomore album ‘Take Me Home’ are the first three singles. “Live While We’re Young” was the first big hit, peaking at #3 in the US (their highest-charting hit) and the same number in their homeland of the UK (surprisingly it didn’t debut at #1). “Kiss You” has just recently been announced as the third single, as “Little Things” didn’t really make any impact…anywhere.

So, how have the boys of 1D grown in the past year? Remember – their debut ‘Up All Night’ was only released in the US earlier this year (and last year in the UK). According to the music on ‘Take Me Home’, they haven’t. No one expected any growth – either in their height or musically. I mean, this is a boy band. Let’s be serious. One Direction is the most produced and orchestrated of them all, and that’s just fine by us.

The similarity of “Live While We’re Young” to their worldwide debut smash “What Makes You Beautiful”  was a sign that this album would be exactly the same as the last. Thankfully for them, that is all that anyone wants. The albums were put out so close to one another, I doubt anyone will be upset. Artists only really run into trouble when they do the same thing over and over for years. 1D stretched that innocent, Disney-esque pop rock into two albums because they were so close together. The real question is “what will they do for album #3?”

‘Take Me Home’ is just as much fun as ‘Up All Night’, and it hits all the same marks. Acoustic guitar-driven produced pop through and through, there is plenty of room for UK singles and pre-teen girl magic. Songs like “Kiss You”, “Last First Kiss”, “Heart Attack”, and “Back For You” could all be confused for one another, each one with the same powerpop chords and personality-less lyrics. Each one of these will be equally adored…that is, until one happens to be picked as a single, and then every middle school female will forget about the rest.

Rami Yacoub and Carl Falk are the main producers behind this album, and that is no surprise. Not only did the two essentially write and produce the group’s first album, they have worked on some of the biggest boy band albums in the past few decades. Names like Backstreet Boys, NSync, The Wanted and so many others (Britney Spears and Nicole Scherzinger are in there as well) fill the duo’s discographies, and only after such research does it dawn on you: absolutely nothing about this album is original.

So, the boys of 1D have made it clear: they have nothing that makes them stand out from the others who have come before them, and the many that are sure to follow. But, if you stop thinking about it, just look at their pretty faces and pretend you’re a kid again, ‘Take Me Home’ is plenty of fun. Or, buy it for a niece or young cousin and rip yourself a copy. No one has to know.

Listen to: “Kiss You”, “C’mon, C’mon”, “Last First Kiss”, “Heart Attack”, or whichever of these you hear first. You’ll get the idea.

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