After the shocking death of 31-year-old One Direction singer Liam Payne, who fell from his hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, millions of fans mourn the loss of a singer who was a significant part of their teenage years. Payne was in Argentina to attend the concert of former bandmate Niall Horan.
The knotty mix of nostalgia and anguish, including over Payne’s struggle with substance abuse, has a common thread — Payne, along with Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik as One Direction, touched their audiences when they were making sense of the coming-of-age pangs. This, besides sending hearts aflutter with their boyish charm.
Payne’s life story is greatly about the cultural impact that the band — born of the talent pool in Fox Television’s X Factor since they didn’t make the cut as individual singers on the show — had on teen girls and boys all over the world. From being picked up from obscurity to becoming one of the most popular bands in the world, One Direction had its own Beatlemania moments.
They debuted with the single What makes you beautiful, which turned them into stars overnight. But what was unique here is that they made teens feel like they were singing only for them. “I know they love me. Even though they don’t know me,” a teenage girl says in One Direction: This is Us, the 2013 documentary.
While the music of One Direction, just like the wonderful pieces that came from Backstreet Boys once and from BTS now, fell victim to being viewed as too bubblegum and lyrically cliched (which they often were), their songs will be remembered. Payne and his partners provided succour to an entire generation of young adults in a precarious space, as they figured out the meanings of life, love and lust.
