Pitchfork eviscerates Liam Payne

[Lion Heart 15,041]

One Direction was famously assembled because Simon Cowell and his fellow X-Factor judges didn’t have much faith in the boys’ potential as solo artists. If Liam Payne’s debut, released more than a decade after the band’s televised genesis, is any indication, Cowell was right. Payne is, at best, competent. His voice is pleasant but not especially charismatic. His choices are safe but uninspired. A couple of years after launching his career, his musical identity remains wholly unremarkable. (Cowell has since criticized Payne in the press for signing with Capitol, and not his own pop-pipeline label.) LP1’s 17 songs, including a 2018 Rita Ora collab from the 50 Shades Freed soundtrack and a Christmas number tacked on at the end, have the ambiance and trend-scraping of a Zara fitting room.

...

“Strip That Down,” a 2017 love song premised on his freedom from One Direction and featuring a bloodless verse from Quavo, has amassed billions of plays. Other singles, like “Familiar” with J Balvin and “Get Low” with Zedd, despite being completely unmemorable, have proved adequate enough to satisfy the low bar of a generic pop playlist. Throwing spaghetti at a Spotify algorithm and seeing what sticks appears to be Payne’s strategy with the rest of LP1. The single “Stack It Up,” featuring A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, further betrays his ambition of an Ed Sheeran-style metabolism of the current pop sounds. There are layered R&B harmonies, vaguely Latin rhythms, and compressed synths as melody, but even with two songs written by Sheeran himself, Payne only gasps at his radio-ready effectiveness.

In recent press, Payne has hinted at the complexity of his life post-One Direction, including fatherhood, brushes with substance abuse, and frustration with accepting his role as the band’s most-boring member. But he draws little inspiration from that wealth of real-life experience. Instead, he relies on inane songwriting concepts, rote misogyny, and feelingless flexing. The lyrics are puerile and half-baked. It’s hardly worth laying them all out on the page, but the worst offender must be from (the nerve!) “Hips Don’t Lie”: “Don’t be giving me the eye/Unless you got what I need/I hope your hips don’t lie/Unless they’re lying with me,” he sings.

One song, “Both Ways,” takes the trope of hetero objectification of bisexual women to gross new lows: “No, no, I don’t discriminate/Bring it back to my place/Yeah, she like it both ways.” In addition to being offensive, it’s not even convincing as an expression of desire. If you can’t effectively use a pop song to communicate horniness, the most basic of human emotions, then what do you have? Listening to LP1, you almost feel sorry for Payne. It’s maybe more pathetic to have failed not for risking too much, but after seeming to have tried so little.

4.3/ 10 

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/liam-payne-lp1/

[Fantina 3,270]

OK, this has to be one of the rudest critiques I've ever read. Sure, I may agree with some things said, but you don't ****ing write a novel on why you hate it.

Imho the person who wrote this needs a reality check

[COOOK 76,406]

Ouch...

[Fantina 3,270]

This is not even constructive criticism, it's just plain rude

[S0436 10,215]

I don’t see the point of kicking someone when they are down.  It’s not like it is going to sell anymore copies now anyway. 

[Boris2 9,238]

This is beyond disrespectful. 

Now share them nudes Liam 

[Lion Heart 15,041]

3 minutes ago, Boris2 said:

This is beyond disrespectful. 

Now share them nudes Liam 

 

[Thomas P 18,464]

they were mean in what they said, but it deserved a lower score than what they gave 

[Thomas P 18,464]

4 minutes ago, Boris2 said:

This is beyond disrespectful. 

Now share them nudes Liam 

 

What she said 

[Dukttape 1,437]

4 minutes ago, Fantina said:

This is not even constructive criticism, it's just plain rude

Music reviews are just that, reviews. Constructive criticism is what his friends should've given him when they heard this before release 

[Daylight Jokers 14,958]

Feels like a butthurt SJW wrote this.  I get that Both Ways is a terrible song and it shouldn't have been released, I get the LP1 is also a bad album but that entire review's not even about LP1 anymore but more about Liam.  That 1D drag was so unnecessary.

[Dukttape 1,437]

Just now, Thomas P said:

they were mean in what they said, but it deserved a lower score than what they gave 

Yeah... all that and they still gave it 43/100.

[BleepBloop 10,313]

Fitting

[Dukttape 1,437]

Just now, LGs LM said:

Feels like a butthurt SJW wrote this.  I get that Both Ways is a terrible song and it shouldn't have been released, I get the LP1 is also a bad album but that entire review's not even about LP1 anymore but more about Liam.  That 1D drag was so unnecessary.

Feels like an ignorant POS wrote this. 

[misunderstood 8,736]

1 minute ago, LGs LM said:

Feels like a butthurt SJW wrote this.  I get that Both Ways is a terrible song and it shouldn't have been released, I get the LP1 is also a bad album but that entire review's not even about LP1 anymore but more about Liam.  That 1D drag was so unnecessary.

Pitchfork is filled with morons we been knew

Just now, Dukttape said:

Feels like an ignorant POS wrote this. 

Keep fuming it's beautiful! Keep trying with your tragic "activism"