One Direction - I Should Have Kissed You

When it comes to boy bands, I've always been most partial to The Wanted. With their scruffy northen-ness and variably cheeky tracks, they distil the epitome of 'lad' culture into brilliant pop nuggets.

But One Direction... they're still too young for all that... Or are they? We certainly know Harry Styles can be a right naughty one when he wants to be. But musically speaking, up til now, the 1D boys haven't matched up to the high standards set by The Wanted's material.

But in new b-side I Should Have Kissed You they up the ante, firing on all cylinders as they deliver a gloriously up-tempo stormer of a track. Stabs of energetic guitar, dizzying shots of synthesiser and a chorus of positively euro-pop glory days proportions. It's like the Buggles Video Killed The Radio Star shot into the 21st century on the back of a rocket booster.

At once both echoing pure-pop of the past and standing as a stark move forward for the 1D boys from the quaintly innocent teen-romance musings of What Makes You Beautiful, the b-side shows there's proper potential in the boys yet.

I Should Have Kissed You - definitely the beginnings of something bigger and better for the band.

One Direction - One Thing

One Direction, for me, still remain hard to pin down. Sure, their mass appeal to millions of screaming teenage girls is self-evident. But beyond that... what is there? What Makes You Beautiful, for all its generous helpings of cheese, was a great pop record. But follow-up Gotta Be You, stabbing at a kind of Wanted-style maturity - while still managing to chart in the Top 5 - seemed to come and go without much note.

What Makes You Beautiful, despite being every inch the teen boyband song, managed to traverse boundaries. Twenty somethings would dance away to it in clubs like their lives depended on it. With One Direction's album failing to make No. 1, the signs were there that fanbase alone couldn't sustain the band to ever-lasting success; they'd have to work to keep the public buying into them.

And that's where new single One Thing falls down. It's like a twin to What Makes You Beautiful, but one that has been locked away and left to atrophy. In itself, it isn't inherently bad, but everything about it spills out its stumbling attempt to recreate the successes of its predecessor. The same tightly packed guitar riffs and percussion, the same shouty choruses - what worked once simply can't work again when the result is so dull and self-serving. A missed opportunity for the band to expand on their sound.