“We’ll keep doing what we do / Just pretending that we’re cool,” begins the chorus of lead single “Live While We’re Young,” the apparent motto of English-Irish boy band One Direction. The group’s sophomore effort fits this mold rather perfectly; Take Me Home continues in just one direction, and that is a path towards more one-syllable words and less substance than an episode of Maury.
The 13 love “songs” on the album are hardly worthy of said title; nothing in the overproduced, empty, rhyming-for-the-sake-of-rhyming lyrics hints at any emotion even close to the barest conception of love. Certainly, “Little Things” harks back to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130,” but the whining vocals and the troublingly awkward chorus shatter any illusion of a comparison with the thunderous force, leaving only disappointment.
Tracks like “Over Again,” which feigns sentimentality with smooth vocal harmonies and at most four hardly audible recurring piano notes, epitomize this inability to formulate effective lyrical content. A verse rhyming “so low” with “solo” and “polo” is perhaps the most salient feature of the song; the sporadic changes in line length and lyrical rhythm ultimately destroy the record.
Instrumentation is predictably lacking on the rest of the LP as well. The most prominent acoustic guitar performance occurs on “I Would,” a track boiling with unusually upbeat themes of jealousy. Just 20 seconds into the song, however, the three welcome yet bland guitar chords are eclipsed by pounding kicks and other assorted electronic drum beats that melt indistinguishably into the rhythms of remaining songs.
Still, the most troubling aspect of “I Would” is the line, “I can’t compete with your boyfriend / He’s got 27 tattoos.” This lyric, which could otherwise be attributed to an attempt at irony, is the only example of potential sarcasm on Take Me Home. The realization quickly sinks in, sending chills down the listener’s spine: these kids are serious, and this band is a lost cause.
Representing a nearly $50 million share of Sony Music Entertainment UK, One Direction is severely overpriced. The band unfortunately has not been reduced to harassing hurried vacationers with burned copies of Take Me Home on the streets of Las Vegas; instead, The Huffington Post declared 2012 “The Year of One Direction.” One can only hope that we choose a new direction soon.
