Linnea Wee
Executive Arts Editor
Liam Payne, a former member of hit boy band One Direction, releases his first solo album since splitting from the group in 2015.
Payne’s album titled “LP1” is a solid collection of well produced tracks that highlight Payne’s voice. However, the catchy pop songs lack originality from Payne as an artist because they fail to bring any new sound to the music industry.
Payne was a member of One Direction from 2010 to 2015 until the group decided to split up. Since then, Payne has released a few singles as a solo artist including “Strip That Down” featuring Quavo.
“LP1” is an album that consists of eleven tracks, including a Christmas song since the album was released just in time for the holidays. “LP1” was produced by Capitol Records and features several other artists such as Rita Ora, Zedd, and Cheat Codes.
“LP1” is a strong album overall, as all the tracks are catchy and pleasing to listen to. Also, all of the featured artists incorporated in the album gives it a little more variety than it would have had if it were just Payne’s voice throughout the entire album.
The biggest criticism of this album is its lack of originality in comparison to other artists or songs in the music industry today. “LP1” does not introduce any new sounds that listeners haven’t heard before.
According to genius.com, Payne mentions that his main inspirations for this album were Justin Tmerlake, Chris Brown, and Usher. It seems as though Payne may have taken these artists into account too much when writing his music because many of the tracks sound much like something that has already been heard from those artists.
Some of his songs also resemble One Direction songs. For example, his Christmas song titled, “All I Want (For Christmas)” sounds exactly like some of the slow songs that One Direction produced over the years.
The strongest component of “LP1” is Payne’s strong vocals. The album does a great shop at highlighting his voice and not letting it get outshined by the instrumentals. It is easy to tell that since the split of One Direction, Payne has become an even more talented singer.
Although Payne has all the potential of a great artist, his debut solo album, “LP1” lacks modern and original tracks, causing it to fall short of expectations.
Capitol Records released “LP1” on Dec. 6, 2019. The album can be streamed on platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify and can be purchased on the iTunes store.
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