One Direction Perfect Single Announcement And Made In The AM Tracklist Spark Frenzied Analysis


One Direction will release their new album Made in the AM in just over a month. Last night, just before the group performed the Birmingham stop of their On The Road Again Tour, Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Niall Horan took to Snapchat to announce the tracklist from the coming album (two of the tracks, “Infinity” and “Drag Me Down,” have already been released).

Perhaps most strikingly, Harry Styles, who has reportedly long been pushing for the group to move to a rockier sound (with Niall Horan countering that this would alienate One Direction’s pop fan base), announced four of the new track names with a nod to songwriting legend Bob Dylan (one that will probably go over the heads of most of 1D’s young fans).

The full tracklist and some of the album art are now doing the rounds on Twitter. This official list comes on the heels of a few fake lists that have been doing the rounds on Twitter (including one with a track called “I’m In Love With A Guy”).

Overall, the official tracklist for Made In The AM by One Direction has a definite flavour of finality, surrender, and leave-taking that may depress some fans. Names like “End of the Day” and “Love You Goodbye” hint at a group reaching the end of a distinct phase of their career (though One Direction members have repeatedly reassured fans that their hiatus next year will truly be “only a break” and they will be back as a four-piece). The back-to-back inclusion of songs titled “If I Could Fly”and “Long Way Down” seems to negate, or contradict, the victorious, lighter-than-air sentiment of Made In The AM‘s first single, “Drag Me Down,” (in which the four-piece sang that “nobody can drag me down,” and Harry Styles closed the track with a series of rapt arpeggio high notes that seemed to cascade down like a waterfall, suggesting that the only “dragging down” the boys will be doing will be vocally, when they show off their chops on new projects).

To be fair, the track “Love You Goodbye” may simply be a song celebrating a one night stand or fling — there is a love ’em and leave ’em spirit to that title (I won’t love you forever but I’ll love you goodbye, girl!) that suggests it may perhaps be the more “sexually charged” One Direction track insiders have hinted will be included on the new album. Also significant is the fact that the title of “Love You Goodbye” was announced on Snapchat by Louis Tomlinson, who is responsible for writing the most sexual track on previous album Four (“No Control”, which included the line “waking up beside you I’m a loaded gun” and spawned its own support campaign — The No Control Project — and a fan-made music video).

Fans on Twitter have observed a pattern of the boys announcing tracks they previously revealed to be their favourites. Liam Payne, who revealed last month that “the song Harry wrote” for Made In The AM made him cry during recording, was the one to announce a Styles-penned track (“Hey Angel”). Niall Horan made his Snapchat contribution by announcing his own favorite, “Never Enough”.

Track “Olivia” also prompted much speculation, celebration (notably from fans with the same name as the girl in the song — the possibility that “Olivia” is a scornful track about a vile groupie or stalker seems to have been lost on 1D’s excited fan base), and comparisons to previous One Direction fan favourite, “Diana.”

The battle between the new One Direction album and Justin Bieber’s upcoming album, Purpose, which will be released on the same day as Made In The AM, continues to rages on Twitter. MTV reports that Bieber and the 1D boys have ribbed each other about this contest, with Bieber even jibing cheekily that One Direction is “not really going on the road” all that much, and they needed to coincide their release date with his to gain extra publicity (The One Direction guys have been touring almost constantly for many months, and their current tour is actually called On The Road Again).

An unsubstantiated rumor that the boys have already filmed the video for their next single, “Perfect,” also started floating around.

Some young fans, eager to promote the band and the new 1D album, raised eyebrows by declaring both their devotion and their sexual willingness.

Others speculated about Made In The AM lyrics, noting that Harry Styles recently took to Twitter to recite the words “Hey Angel” (now revealed to be the title of track 1 on Made In The AM) and a line of poetic sentiments that some fans are now convinced must be the lyrics from the song.

“Hey Angel” may prove to be a standout — not only was it chosen to be the album opening track, it inspired that much-retweeted Harry Styles tweet, and it is even rumored to be the favorite track of the One Direction boys’ vocal coach.

What do you think of the Made In The AM tracklist? Are you looking forward to One Direction’s Made In The AM, or Justin Bieber’s Purpose, or neither, or both? Let us know in the comments.

[Image by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images]

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