The news that One Direction fans up and down the land are distraught at the fact that one of their members is leaving is not unusual in the history of popular music.
As a young boy (honest!), I remember the near hysterical scenes that greeted the Beatles wherever they went, thousands of girls throwing themselves at the feet of four long-haired lads from Liverpool. They would gather at London Airport, many thousands of them, looking from the viewing galleries and anywhere else they could get. And it happened all over again in the 1970s when five young men from Scotland, the Bay City Rollers, broke the hearts and dampened the gussets of most young girls in the land. So we should not be surprised that it’s happening again today now that Zayn Malik has left to spend more time with what remains of his sanity.
I must confess that I am not over familiar with the band, such as they are, although I do understand that they arrived individually to perform in Simon Cowell’s television karaoke show, The X Factor, and left as a popular beat combo. They were probably created not with the middle aged man market in mind. Nonetheless, it must come as a bit of shock to find that they are no longer five.
Looking at photos of the band, I am assuming that Malik is one of five singers, not the lead guitar player or the drummer, so presumably it won’t be all that hard for Cowell to audition another hopeful wannabe with the ability to sing a song someone else has written to replace him.
They would do well to look at what happened to Take That when Robbie Williams left. The carried on as a four piece until the multi-untalented Jason Orange left to spend more time with his unpaid tax and now they are three. It didn’t really make a lot of difference. In fact, I would argue that they made their best music – Beautiful World and The Circus – without Williams, but crucially with Orange!
The bad news for boy bands is their audience grows old with them. The good news is that they often stick with them, as we saw at first hand with the grab a granny brigade at various Take That gigs at the Millennium Stadium. Perhaps One Direction will still be here in a decade or so, topping the bill on from the London Palladium or in Las Vegas.
I’m sure they are very nice chaps but I am heartily sick of manufactured pop groups who can’t play a note and have very little talent. Happily, my own musical collection includes a great deal of content from The Monkees who, once Micky Dolenz learned to play the drums (sort of) and Davy Jones got to grasp the tambourine, went on to greatness.
Don’t cry for Zayn, he’ll be all right. And if he isn’t, there’s always the X Factor again or even The Voice. Either way, there are plenty of options for people who have very little talent these days. Everyone else has to learn their trade.
