Spaces Between Us: One Direction’s ‘Four’ (10 Year Anniversary)
November 17th marks the 10th anniversary of One Direction’s 4th album. We are looking back at how the project has taken on a whole new meaning.
Where it all began
I want to start this article by making note of Liam Payne’s passing. Although there has been a lot of controversy surrounding his death I grew up with One Direction. Like many of you, this news has brought back a part of our childhoods. Now looking at 10 years since ‘Four’s‘ release, it is only right to honour the love the band brought to us.
With all this in mind, it is only right to start from the beginning. Unless you were born after the 2010s, then you’ll know One Direction was a household name across the globe. Particularly, they won the hearts of millions and annoying the parents of those screaming children whose hearts they had won. I was eight years old when Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis, and Zayn all entered the X Factor stage individually. Admittedly from that point on, I was unable to think of anything else.
The impact of this boyband was immense, they took over the world and remained so cheeky and charming throughout it. For the first time in my life, I had found something of my own to obsess over, no outside influence. Confessedly, I remember hiding outside of my living room door and forcing my mum and dad to break the news that they had been voted off. I couldn’t bear to watch it myself (dramatic, I know). But this was the extent of the love I had for 5 boys who I watched sit in a stairwell and talk every week prior.
Ready to Run
In regards to this fourth album, it is home to some of their best work. While some of these tracks aren’t as recognisable as their hits, songs like ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go’ represent the type of music they wanted to be making. Similarly to their changes in life, the parallels between the heavier, rockier sounds reflected a new style that began on the prior album ‘Midnight Memories’. Alternatively, it teetered on the edge of playful teenagers trying to find their sound. Whilst ‘Four’ understood that not only were they growing up but their fanbase was too. Equally going from sly inappropriate lyrics on ‘Take Me Home’, that went over every 10-year-old’s head, ‘Four’ had a real depth in its storytelling.
Furthermore, a highlight of this LP is the woeful honesty of ‘Fool’s Gold’. This track takes the irresistible boyband look and turns it back in on itself. Despite their image, it doesn’t stop the way infatuation makes you do idiotic things.
In addition, tracks like ‘Fireproof’ and ‘Change Your Ticket’ are reminiscent of early 1D. They showed that vulnerability still exists in a childlike ignorance of the world. For example, Matty Healy was asked to write with the band. In reality, they wanted his opinion on ‘Change Your Ticket’. Furthermore, it’s a song that sounds incredibly similar to The 1975’s ‘Girls’. In particular, this proved a change within their sound. The band was able to use outside influences of bands that strayed away from the cookie-cutter exterior that One Direction had begun to steer away from.
However, a song that has always stood out to me on this album is ‘Spaces’. Importantly, this track seemed like a precursor to the fate the band would meet before the release of their fifth and final release, ‘Made In the A.M.’. ‘Spaces’ could easily be seen as another breakup song that tells the tale of losing grip on the person you love. In fact, with Zayn’s later departure from the band, this story still rings true. This is demonstrated by each of the boys taking turns to confess that the band they once were in was no longer present. The ringing of “Who’s gonna be the first to say goodbye?” is almost pitting the question to one another. That question, who was going to make the first move out of the group?
Growing Pains
As previously mentioned, this anniversary is not one that I can celebrate in the way I usually would. Normally, I’d reflect with a happy outlook on how this band changed the way I see music and its importance. While all of these things are still true, there is an arrow-shaped cloud that hangs above that now.
Malika says it best in her latest ‘Written by Malika‘ piece. While touching on the same topic of Liam’s passing, it is undoubtably hard to comment on someone you don’t know personally. Nevertheless, I know many Directioners have felt this unexplainable sadness and guilt due to this tragic event. Despite never knowing a person, when growing up with them and holding them in such high regard in your formative years, you can’t help but feel like you’ve lost an old friend. Along with these feelings is a deep sorrow for the people who loved him the most. As fans, you knew all their siblings and parent’s names and the places the boys grew up. This only makes that sadness stronger.
Para-social relationships with celebrities are tricky to understand and odd to experience. There is no denying this whether you have been guilty of it or not. However, the feeling of belonging when you find people who love something as much as you is like no other. I met so many incredible people through the One Direction fandom, who likely have children and their own houses now. Yet, that sense of togetherness will stick with us forever.
Ultimately this feeling has come flooding back since the news last month. This time it’s melancholic and filled with confusion at finding out the person you worshipped as a child may not be who you thought they were. At the end of it all, this incredibly heartbreaking reality has brought back a part of my eight-year-old self that has been rewatching old X-Factor video diaries and sharing stories with my partner about thinking I was going to marry Niall.
Hold all our secrets
I wish this reunion with the band I loved growing up hadn’t been at the hands of such tragedy. On the other hand, it reiterates that you should always love what you love and hold the things that mean the most to you as close as possible. ‘Four’ represented the maturing of the band and their fans. Now, it also stands as a piece of work that has been revisited by even older fans who have experienced much more since then. At 22 I can listen back and relate in ways I never could at 12, even if I thought then that I had experienced and knew everything. The way you love things may change but the way you feel when it happens never does.
Listen to ‘Four‘ below. You can find One Direction on Instagram. Read more Anniversary pieces like this one here.
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