Liam Payne’s voice is the primary one heard within the culture-shifting boy band One Route’s debut single: “What Makes You Lovely” launches right into a bouncy guitar riff, a cheeky and borderline gratuitous cowbell after which, Payne.
“You’re insecure, don’t know what for / You’re turning heads while you stroll by way of the door,” he sings, in a number of phrases assuring a cross-section of generations that he is received your again, lady, and you must like your self slightly bit extra.
Payne, who died Wednesday after falling from a lodge balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at simply 31, was additionally the final solo voice on the band’s last single, “Historical past” — successfully opening and shutting the monolithic run of one of many largest boy bands of all time.
Whereas the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear — Buenos Aires police mentioned in an announcement that Payne “had jumped from the balcony of his room,” though they did not provide particulars on how they established that or whether or not it was intentional — in life, Payne was a crucial a part of the web’s first boy band, one which secured an indelible place within the hearts of millennial and Gen Z followers.
Earlier than One Direction became One Direction, its members auditioned for the U.Okay.’s “The X Issue” individually. The judges determined to place 5 promising, however not but glorious, boys into a gaggle. They have been Harry Types, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Payne, who collectively completed third within the 2010 competitors.
As Rolling Stone contributing editor Rob Sheffield factors out, it was an “unprecedented” means for a boy band to get their begin.
“They have been kind of assigned to be collectively. And also you don’t anticipate longevity out of that state of affairs. Actually, you don’t even anticipate one good pop report to come back out of that state of affairs,” he says. And but, not solely did it work, however One Route primarily created “a brand new template for pop stardom, actually.”
The present allowed Day 1 followers to observe their profession earlier than their official 2011 launch with “What Makes You Lovely.” Nascent followers may use rising social media platforms like Twitter and Tumblr to seek out neighborhood, draw consideration to the group and, within the earliest days, converse on to the members.
“I actually made a Twitter in order that I may sustain with One Route, and that’s how I made so many various associates,” says Gabrielle Kopera, 28, a fan from California who remembers the band internet hosting livestreams and chats. “Typically they’d say one thing again and it was a lot enjoyable. I really feel like that fan interplay doesn’t even occur anymore.”
That feeling of accessibility bolstered the group’s persona and relationship with followers, says Maura Johnston, a contract music author and Boston Faculty adjunct teacher.
“The truth that they got here up on this British TV present they usually grew to become this worldwide phenomenon, I don’t assume that may have occurred as acutely and as shortly and as immersive with out social media, with out Twitter or with out folks with the ability to mobilize across the globe,” she says.
Millennial and Gen Z audiences virtually grew up with One Route, however the band was actually ubiquitous. That, Johnston says, is not less than partially attributable to arriving in a really completely different media atmosphere from right now’s.
“They have been 5 very completely different musical personalities, together with 5 very completely different personalities,” says Sheffield.
They broke the foundations related to conventional boy bands, too: “They co-wrote a lot of their songs. They didn’t do, you understand, corny, choreographed steps on stage,” he mentioned.
After the information of Payne’s demise, Kopera says she “received so many messages from folks I haven’t talked to in years reaching out as a result of I believe everybody form of realized that it does really feel like we simply misplaced a member of the family.”
That sentiment was mirrored within the Wednesday outdoors Buenos Aires’ Casa Sur Lodge, feeding a burgeoning makeshift memorial of flowers, candles and notes as police stood guard.
Payne was a “brooding” older brother-type in One Route, says Johnston. He additionally co-wrote many songs, particularly of their later profession — just like the Fleetwood Mac-channeling “What A Feeling” and “Fireproof.”
“He was this grounding drive within the band,” Johnston says.
In an Instagram tribute, Tomlinson referred to as Payne “essentially the most important a part of One Route.”
“His expertise from a younger age, his excellent pitch, his stage presence, his present for writing. The checklist goes on. Thanks for shaping us Liam,” he wrote.
“I all the time do not forget that he was the accountable and the wise one of many group, and I really feel like he wore his coronary heart on his sleeve,” Kopera says.
Payne had just lately been vocal about fighting alcoholism, posting a YouTube video in July 2023 the place he mentioned he had been sober for six months after receiving remedy. Buenos Aires police mentioned they discovered clonazepam — a central nervous system depressant — and different over-the-counter medication in Payne’s lodge room, together with a whiskey bottle within the courtyard the place he was discovered.
“Taking a look at what occurred to Liam, it simply makes you are feeling much more unhappy, that it simply looks like he wanted assist,” Kopera says. “And it’s so scary to consider how the leisure trade can simply, like, eat up artists.”
After One Direction disbanded in 2016, Payne’s solo profession — a single R&B-pop album in 2019, “LP1,” and plenty of singles right here and there — by no means took off the identical means as a few of his bandmates. He was “the least profitable,” Sheffield says. “It’s protected to say that on the phrases that he was going for, he didn’t actually discover what he wished to do.”
“It is onerous, transitioning from being a boy bander to be a pop star,” Johnston says.
At Payne’s solo reveals, Sheffield explains, “He would present slightly montage of One Route performing, which is the form of factor you don’t do while you’re beginning out as a solo artist. However followers took that within the spirit it was supplied, which is a really beneficiant assertion that he’s like, ‘Yep, you’re right here due to this historical past that we share, and I’m right here due to that very same historical past.’”
Regardless of Payne’s struggles and the tragedy of his demise, Kopera is assured “his legacy goes to all the time level again to One Route.”
For followers, the identical is true.
“After I look again on One Route, I’m like, that was my girlhood. One Route was the soundtrack to rising up, and I’m so grateful for it,” she says. “They actually have been only a group of regular boys.”
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AP journalist Brooke Lefferts contributed to this report.
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