Driving down the street with the windows down and blasting some One Direction is the definition of bliss.
Hearing five European men tell me how amazing falling in love is sucks me in and makes belting out the lyrics along to any of their songs irresistible while on the road.
What isn’t bliss, however, is lowering the volume on my car stereo from 10 down to two out of pure embarrassment when anyone at the stoplight witnesses my pure love for the boyband.
This is what it means to be a guilty pleasure fan of a band.
Our executive producer John Bricker thinks the Bee Gees are considered a guilty pleasure, but disco is the greatest genre of music ever created and saying that they can only be enjoyed with a side of guilt is a disgrace to music fans.
Although my love for disco prevents me from agreeing with him, there is a genre of music that is truly unworthy of praise: parasitic teeny bop.
But I will reluctantly admit, One Direction is just too damn good.
Maybe it’s their catchy upbeat melodies that hook me for hours or maybe I’m just a sucker for their youthful charisma. Whatever it is, there is nothing more fun than toe tapping myself to class to the songs of One Direction.
There is just so much you can do with their music, it’s almost scary.
Want a pick-me-up for your 8 a.m. class? Listen to “What Makes You Beautiful” and you will be ready for a long lecture.
Want to bust out a quick mile on the track? Bump “No Control” and your mile time will drop without a doubt.
They manifest themselves in my everyday life and I hate it, but I can’t stop listening.
As a simple middle school nerd in 2010, I was terrified to admit that the first One Direction album spoke to me.
But now, I express my love with just mild fear.
Despite being broken up for about a half decade, they continue to find success in the music industry.
At the time of their breakup, I was a major Liam Payne fan, but now Harry Styles rocks my world more than I’d ever want to admit.
I’d say Styles took the pop world by storm when he released his second solo album, “Fine Line,” in 2019, but that would be an understatement.
Vox described it as “adventurous and enjoyable” and Pitchfork said that it “sounds like good music.”
With reviews like that, I don’t understand how everyone isn’t a Styles fan.
The deep yet vague structure of the songs make it so that young teenage girls could relate to the lyrics, giving them fantasies of the potential for love in their life.
While at the same time, an elderly man on his deathbed could pop on a tune from the band and it would put a glistening smile on his face with memories from the past.
The band’s demographic is infinite.
One Direction is not just a band, but a group of legends with legacies that reign supreme even as solo artists.
If you are telling me you can listen to “Adore You” by Harry Styles without wanting to dance like a 15-year-old girl, you are a liar and we could never be friends.
The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC might have started the boyband phase, but One Direction perfected it.
Despite my fiery love for everyone in the group, I know I will never truly be able to listen to the band without the fear of judgment, and that is what makes them so special.
I say now that I love them, but if you run into me in person, please never ask me what I’m listening to because if the answer is One Direction or any of its former members, I’ll have to lie to your face.
