Anna Rinaggio, Campus Carrier copy editor
As the Campus Carrier’s resident fangirl, I often find myself talking about One Direction in our office. Whether we’re debating who the best member is or whether they’re even relevant anymore, you know I’ll always be one of the loudest voices in the conversation. One conversation that we’re yet to have, however, is one regarding the merit of their albums. This is a conversation I will now be forcing the entire Berry campus to engage in.
Yes, rankings have been done time and time again by plenty of people on the internet, but now it’s time for me to share my incredibly important opinions with the public. I will base my rankings on the strength of the singles off each album as well as the cohesiveness of the entire work. Albums will be ranked from what I consider to be the worst album to the best, even though I’d argue that there is no “worst” album, just some that aren’t as ethereal as others.
Starting with the least best album, I think we all have to agree that it’s “Up All Night.” At 14, this album was exactly what I needed; however, at my now wise 21 years of age, the album has too many songs that make me cringe.
“I Want,” although certainly a banger, is kind of a ridiculous song, I have to admit. “Na Na Na” is another song that works fine if I only listen to the beat, but realistically, the lyrics don’t really do it for me. “We’re like na-na-na, then we’re like yeah-yeah-yeah” isn’t all that moving, is it?
To be fair, “What Makes You Beautiful” and “One Thing” are timeless hits, but the strengths of these singles doesn’t outweigh the fact that the rest of the songs were lyrically lacking. “Up All Night” will always hold a special place in my heart, but I fear it is the last album I’m clicking on during my One Direction jam nights.
Next is “Take Me Home.” If we were doing this based on opinion, I’d put this album higher on the list — “Loved You First” is one of my favorite One Direction songs — but we’re doing an objective and scientific ranking here, so I have to do the hard job of putting this album in its place. “Take Me Home” has some absolute classics such as “Live While We’re Young” and “They Don’t Know About Us.” Unfortunately, however, just like “Up All Night,” the stronger songs are weighed down by others whose lyrics make you want to crawl into a hole.
I have and will always be more on the hater side of “Little Things.” The sentiment of this song penned by Ed Sheeran is cute, I guess, but even when I was younger, I thought it was a bit much. “Rock Me” is another one I just can’t get past. As an era, I think this was a great time for the boys. Musically, however, they still weren’t quite getting there.
Third on the list would have to be “Midnight Memories.” This album was certainly a great musical shift for the band; their lyrics started making more sense — that is assuming you ignore the classic and perhaps most famous nonsense line, “If you ever feel alone, don’t” — and they started to have a more mature look and sound as a group. The singles include some of their most iconic songs, such as “Story of My Life” and “Best Song Ever.” This is the first album I felt was not weighed down by too many immature lyrics.
Nonetheless, this album must remain in the middle in terms of rankings. It’s most certainly a sign of growth, but there was still a ways to go in terms of musical maturity for the band.
Next up is “Made In The A.M.” Musically, of course, this album is full of bops and feel-good bangers, and commercially, singles “Drag Me Down,” “Perfect” and “History” performed extremely well. The one thing missing? The angelic voice of Zayn Malik. While his reasons for leaving One Direction are justified, the band simply wasn’t the same without his artistry. What really saves this album, therefore, is the beautiful song lyrics — thank you Louis Tomlinson.
Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the objectively superior One Direction album. “Four,” despite its underwhelming name, is unsurprisingly at the top of this list, marking not only the peak of the band musically, but their best era to date. This is where I feel like the band really found their sound, and although there was some turmoil along the way, it’s one of my favorite eras of any musical group ever.
Every song is banger after banger, and if it’s not upbeat, it tugs at your heartstrings in the perfect way. The music videos were absolute masterpieces; I never thought I’d be so excited to see Danny Devito in the same room as One Direction, but the “Steal My Girl” music video was apparently the celebrity crossover I didn’t know I needed.
There you have it—the perfect ranking of One Direction’s discography. If you disagree, I fear you’ll have to come to terms with the fact that you are very, very wrong and give the albums another thorough listen.