At One Direction’s first audition together on The X Factor in 2010, Liam Payne – who died yesterday – is given the opening line. Singing Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn to Simon Cowell and Sinitta, Payne is only 16 yet has seemingly absorbed decades of pop stagecraft. It’s a difficult opening verse to sell to the judges – downbeat and low-register – but Payne nails it. Rippling vibrato denotes his trembling heart and matinee-idol acting sells the line “she showed me what it was to cry” as he glances off to one side as if slapped by the painful memory all over again.
As the four other members join Payne, you can almost see Cowell’s eyes whirling like a fruit machine. These lads can harmonise. They can soulfully extemporise. Each of them is handsome in the subtly different ways teen idols need to be handsome, from boyish to smouldering. They seem entirely comfortable wearing the ratty scarves of the era. Here is something British – even global – pop has been sorely missing: a genuinely convincing boyband.
