Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if they barely recorded any new material for this album - not only by the drop in quality, but just by looking at the credits. The fact that they basically wrote all of Midnight Memories and Four - yet half the songs here were either co-written by only one of the band, with the other half just being purchased from other professional songwriters. I doubt the label will have many costs to recoup, but it almost makes the whole album seem like a waste of time to drop it then disappear indefinitely a month later.
What's odd is that they actually spent time in a studio for a couple weeks for this album. Yet it doesn't sound any better than FOUR (which in my opinion is their best sounding album). What really gets me is the lazy vocal production on some tracks. In two instances you can hear Niall sing his verse differently. I can tell they used two different takes. (Infinity and A.M.)
This isn't really true though. On Midnight Memories band members were credited on 15 of 18 tracks On Four it was 12 of 16 tracks On Made in the AM it's 13 of 17 tracks And it's always been just co-writes and usually one or two members.
End Of The Day sounds like the chorus and verses were originally from different songs. A Biology oolong.
Those covers really saved this album's sales. Apparently this was the breakdown: 170,000 - Digital Preorders 20,000 - Digital copies sold in total on Friday - Sunday 19,000 - Physical copies sold at Walmart on Friday - Sunday 81,000 - Physical copies sold at Target on Friday - Sunday It apparently sold roughly 125k-135k in digital+physical throughout the rest of the week.
Interesting info. Like I said, it is a bit weak that they had to rely on this to assure big sales. This became a trend for boybands nowadays which is a chip trick - be big enough and play fair relaying on your material and not how pretty you look on your album cover or slipcase.
I knew Louis can't pull off that long note in Love You Goodbye: Studio makes wonders... Its ridiculous how the fans are fangirling over that note, it isn't not that high and it is just a bit long. Its not impressive at all but I guess for his standards it is...
^Is Harry still sick or has he just ruined his voice? I like the album - it has some good solid pop songs on it.
I've watched some of their recent interviews and Harry is quite funny. Interviewer: We have to mention the Z word. Harry: ZEBRAS?! Where? - Interviewer: What was the hardest thing about going from five to four? Harry: Probably the paperwork.
Which is funny, because some 1D fans are saying Justin only won the US by discounting his album. I find it a little sad that they only won in the UK by about 3000 albums. But at the same time this is a mediocre album so I'm not surprised people outside the fanbase ignored it.
It's your opinion it's a mediocre album...it's not but belittling them obviously makes you happy. Incredible amount for a boyband on their fifth album..typical.thing to do in this country though, Knock anything succesful. We could knock Justin about streaming etc etc but why? Good on them both. Massive sales in US for both of them! 2 good albums too.
