My review of one directions fourth studio album cleverly titled Four

Overall 3.5/5

Hey everybody, so it looks like one direction has released their 4th studio album cleverly titled FOUR. Yes what a coincidence that is. Maybe that name was intentional, but I am only joking of course. So I grew up during the 90's when boy bands really took off. You had boy bands like Backstreet Boys, NSync, 98 Degrees, LFO as well as a bunch of other ones I want to forget about. You know now it seems in the early 2000's boy bands sort of fell apart, same with the middle of 2000's and then all of a sudden there's been this explosion of boy bands in the last couple of years with Five Seconds of Summer,. Justin Bieber and also One Direction. But I want to say that I am not afraid to admit that I really enjoyed a lot of their songs off One Direction's last album Midnight Memories quite a bit actually. They's guys are really great at writing stadium pop songs, sing alongs that are chalk full of power chords, loud choruses as well as beating drums and great acoustical arrangements. And this time around for this new album, Ed Sheeran has lent his talents to some of the song writing credits on this album. So the album interestingly enough takes on a variety of styles and sees the band mature from what they've previously done in their older albums.

So there's a really good variety of pop rock songs, alternative rock, their's more folky stuff and there's even some stuff that sounds like alternative rock I would hear on certain radio stations. You know in fact some of these songs especially like No Control would sound like an alternative rock song to me. There are moments on here I was impressed by the guitar playing on here because i normally wouldn't associate it with One DIrection or any kind of pop music. So and even the small little riffs here and there made me think twice as to whether i was really actually listening to a One Direction Album. To me the best part of the album and any One Direction song is really the vocal arrangements and the melodies are brilliant as well and the harmonies on top of that with these five guys singing together is top notch. The first single that was released was Steal my Girl. it's actually the first song off the album. It's a solid single, it's not necessarily the best representation of this whole album. I think if you dig a little deeper and listen to rest of the album besides the single you're going to find some really great singles here. This song is a very piano driven song, but It's surely going to have a lot of girls singing along when they are doing their tour next year. The single like I Said it's a bit misleading, there are a lot better songs than this.

Tracklist

1. "Steal My Girl"
2. "Ready to Run"
3. "Where Do Broken Hearts Go"
4. "18"
5. "Girl Almighty"
6. "Fool's Gold"
7. "Night Chances"
8. "No Control"
9. "Fireproof"
10. "Spaces"
11. "Stockholm Syndrome"
12. "Clouds"
Deluxe
13. "Change Your Ticket"
14. "Illusion"
15. "Once in a Lifetime"
16. "Act My Age"

On 27 April 2014, it was confirmed that One Direction were working on their fourth studio album.[2] Good Charlotte was reported to have collaborated with band members Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson for writing songs.[3] McFly members Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones and Dougie Poynter also teamed up with Niall Horan to write some tunes for the album, with one of their songs being so good, McFly claimed it should be released as a single. Rock band Kodaline wrote an "unrequited love song" with Harry Styles, and The 1975 were chosen by One Direction themselves to work on the album. Other people involved in the album are singers John Legend, Emeli Sandé and producer Naughty Boy.[4] Payne claimed that the album would be "edgier" and the group have written most of the songs for it.[5]

The name and cover of the album was announced on 8 September on One Direction's official website, along with a free download of a song called "Fireproof", which was available for 24 hours.[6] Horan stated that the reason for the free download was "because you have supported us so much, we wanted to give a little something back".[1] "Fireproof" was written by Payne and Tomlinson along with John Ryan, Jamie Scott and Julian Bunetta, who also wrote their single "Story of My Life".[7] In the 24-hour span, 1.1 million downloads were generated.[8] The song was put on the band's Vevo on 22 September.[9]

In an interview with Simon Cowell, he revealed that one of the songs for the album will be titled "18", which is written by Ed Sheeran, who also wrote "Little Things" and "Moments" for the group.[10]