Voices of screaming women echo through concert halls, weeping and begging for their favorite band members. Harmonious voices sing out in angelic fashion. They are everyone's favorite twenty-something British pop-rock band, and everyone's favorite hair styles. The year is 1965 and 2010 the band is The Beatles and One Direction and they both are going to change the landscape of their respective generations.
Written off in the post apocalyptic wasteland that is the 21 century music industry One Direction is not getting seen in a fair light. Being presented as just another tacky and lackluster “boy band” a harsh sentence based off their predecessors of *NSYNC, New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys. Although the bands appearance of 5 young men who sing and for the most parts do not play instruments their band is not very boyish.
The Beatles fab-four came to the United States in 1965 playing on the Ed Sullivan show this was their major media outlet. One Direction started on the UK’s version of “the Voice” a popular singing show. Both of these bands start on the same media source on a TV show to gain a larger audience.
Many adult males have written off One Direction claiming they are childish and made for girls. Sexist maybe, wrong absolutely. They come on stage to screaming women EXACTLY like the Beatles upbringings. They sing chorus driven pop songs that get stuck in your head just like the Beatles did.
The Beatles were pop-stars for the first half of their career. They wrote songs about girls and love with mostly 3-4 chords. It wasn't until Revolver that they came into their own, on that album you could hear them mature. They followed that up with Sargent Pepper arguably the greatest album in the history of music. They morphed into true artist and masters of their craft. Even with John and Pauls feud continuing and eventually escalated making the creativity a contest. It drove both songwriters to be better and better.
One Direction started out with their first three albums as pop hits but their fourth album cleverly named FOUR the band started to mature. This is mostly seen in the song No Control. It starts out with a great guitar riff then solid lyrics written by Louis Tomlinson riddled with clever sexual innuendos. A powerful chorus that has great harmonies and a bridge that perfectly moves the song along. With other strong supporting songs like Fireproof, Clouds and Stockholm Syndrome. Along with Heavy hitters such as Night Changes and Steal my Girl.
They then moved onto their newest album Made In the A.M. which came out this past February which showed the groups maturity in full. They lost a member as Zayn Malik decided to pursue his solo career. They overcame this in spectacular fashion. The entire album showed just how much they changed throughout their entire career. They weren't kids anymore they were full grown artist. They emerged from their pop-star cocoon to make songs about real concrete ideas. This is clearly seen in the song Perfect a song about how relationships struggle because of the groups rising levels of fame. Also an ode to the bands fans and the former member Malik is seen in History. An upbeat tune with Beatle like harmonies. This album saw feuds between Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson which as the Beatles showed fuels better creativity.
The Beatles are and will be the greatest band of all time but the path of these young rock stars is unbelievably similar to the fab four. The unique hair styles the marketability of both groups and the millions of screaming young women at all of their shows. One Direction is on a break after touring 5 years in a row after their hiatus is over if the similarities to the Beatles are accurate they will become the biggest band in the world changing music as we know it.