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.
