Take Me Home (One Direction album)
Take Me Home is the second studio album by English-Irish boy band One Direction, released on November 9, 2012, by Syco Music and Columbia Records. As a follow-up to One Direction's internationally successful debut album Up All Night, Take Me Home was written in groups and has an average of just under five songwriters per track. Largely recorded and composed in Sweden during 2012, Savan Kotecha, Rami Yacoub and Carl Falk, who composed One Direction's hits, "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Thing", spent six months in Stockholm developing songs for the album, and were able to shape melodies around the members' tones.
The album's songs are characterised by metronomic pop, vocal harmonies, hand claps, prominent electric guitar riffs, bright synthesizers, a homogeneous sound and message, and rotations of lead vocals. The members' voices are presented individually on the record, and its lyricism speaks of falling in love, unrequited love, commitment, jealousy and self-empowerment. Take Me Home garnered mostly positive reviews from music critics. There was praise for its quality of production, while criticism hinged on its generic, rushed nature.
Globally, the album topped the charts in more than 35 countries. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, Take Me Home was the fourth-global-best-selling album of 2012, selling 4.4 million units. The album's number-one debut on the US Billboard 200 chart made One Direction the first group to bow atop the Billboard 200 with their first two albums since American girl group Danity Kane entered with Welcome to the Dollhouse in 2008 and their self-titled debut in 2006. One Direction also became the second act in 2012 to achieve two number-one albums within a 12-month period, and the first boy band in US chart history to land two number-one albums in a calendar year. Their debut album and Take Me Home were the third and fifth-best-selling albums of 2012 in the United States, respectively, making the band the first act to place two albums in the year-end top five in the Nielsen SoundScan era.
The album's lead single, "Live While We're Young", released on 28 September 2012, peaked inside the top ten in almost every country it charted in and recorded the highest one-week opening sales figure for a song by a non-U.S. artist. The subsequent singles, "Little Things" and "Kiss You", were less successful, although the former topped the UK Singles Chart. To promote the album, One Direction performed the album's songs on several televised programmes and a headlining sold-out concert at the Madison Square Garden. Furthermore, One Direction embarked on their second worldwide concert tour entitled the Take Me Home Tour in 2013.
Background and production
In 2012, One Direction revealed that a follow-up release to their debut album, Up All Night, was in development. "In the summer, we're going to get back and start a new record. We want to bring out a record nearly every year, every year and a half," Niall Horan said, revealing they were arranging "meetings and stuff with different writers and producers." In March 2012, McFly frontman Tom Fletcher confirmed that he would be writing a song for the album. In February 2012, One Direction expressed interest in working with Ed Sheeran, and in June 2012, Sheeran confirmed that they were in contact: "I'm going into the studio in August to produce the tracks for them. I won't feature on the tracks though".In April 2012, The Independent reported that Simon Cowell, the group's manager, had challenged prominent songwriters to compete for space on One Direction's second album. Dee Demirbag, responsible for repertoire at BMG Rights Management, a music publisher, in Scandinavia, said: "Breaking a boy band in the U.S. is about as big as it gets in the music industry, so you can imagine the competition to get cuts on the next One Direction album is immense". In addition, the article reported that Syco Records was working on candidates with Max Martin and Kristian Lundin. By August 2012, it was confirmed that album would feature work from veterans such as Carl Falk, Rami Yacoub, Dr. Luke, Cirkut, and Shellback.
Take Me Home was written in groups and has an average of just under five songwriters per track. "The Swedish-style songwriting: melody first" was predominantly utilised, according to Time correspondent Douglas Wolk. Savan Kotecha, Yacoub, and Falk, who composed One Direction's hits, "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Thing", spent six months in Stockholm, Sweden, developing songs for the album, and were able to shape melodies around their tones. Kotecha reflected: "We'll spend days, sometimes weeks, challenging the melody. The goal is to make it sound like anyone can do this, but it's actually very difficult". In addition, after viewing the international success of "What Makes You Beautiful", the trio conceptualised songs "that kids could play on guitar and cover on YouTube."
After extensive promotional appearances in support of their debut album, One Direction began recording the album in May 2012, in Stockholm, Sweden, at Kinglet Studios. In June 2012, the group continued recording the album in the United States, while touring on the final leg of their Up All Night Tour. Horan, in a June interview with MTV News, disclosed that the group were intending to spend their time in July and August "getting the album done." Besides sessions in Kinglet Studios, recording sessions and mixing for the album took place at Chalice Studios in Los Angeles, MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Wendy House Productions in London, and Sticky Studios in Surrey, England.
Packaging
The album cover artwork, revealed on 30 August 2012, features the group surrounding a traditional British K6 red telephone box, a familiar sight on the streets of the UK. The phone booth is on display at the Hard Rock Cafe in Piccadilly Circus London.Music and lyrics
The album's songs are characterised by metronomic rock-inherited pop, vocal harmonies, hand claps, prominent electric guitar riffs, bright synthesisers, double entendres for sexual intercourse, a homogeneous sound and message, the pitch-correcting software Auto-Tune, and rotations of lead vocals. Jon Caramanica, writing in The New York Times, considered the album "far more mechanical" than their debut album, although noted that it is sonically and lyrically similar. San Lansky, an editor for Idolator, described it as "'80s-inflected and intermittently rock-dappled", and as more indebted to the "sanitized punk crunch of McFly" than to teen pop.Alexis Petridis, a music journalist, interpreted its signature sound as a "peppy, synth-bolstered take on early-80s new-wave pop, heavy on clipped rhythms and chugging guitars," which, he said, is at least an improvement on the substitute R&B "that was once the grim lot of the boyband." The opening guitar riff of "Live While We're Young" has been noted as similar to that of the Clash's 1982 single, "Should I Stay or Should I Go", by some critics. According to Petridis, the guitar is played thrice between the riff with the plectrum stroking the strings, while it is pressed. One note in the chord is changed, which Petridis surmised was probably to avoid paying any royalty to the Clash. "Rock Me" has a clapping, mid-tempo beat that has been likened to that "We Will Rock You", a 1977 single by Queen.
The group's voices are presented individually on the record. Savan Kotecha noted that the Backstreet Boys' late-'90s hits inspired the way he formulated One Direction's voices for the album. Composer Julian Bunetta, who worked on three of Take Me Home tracks, also tried to place emphasis on the sound of each member: "The fans can tell the difference, but we wanted to make sure that when it came on the radio, the average person knew that it must be One Direction, because it's five guys."
Promotion
Take Me Home has yielded three singles, including two US singles. Its lead single, "Live While We're Young", was released by Syco Records on 28 September 2012. The song rocketed to worldwide success, peaking at number one in Ireland and New Zealand and the top ten in almost every country it charted in. In the United States, "Live While We're Young" debuted at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, sold 341,000 downloads in its first week, and bowed at number one on the Digital Songs chart. Its debut marks the highest bow by a British group and the second-highest debut among all UK acts, outpaced only by Elton John's number one arrival with "Candle in the Wind 1997". Its opening sales denote the biggest opening sales figure for a single by a non-US artist and the third ever for a download by a group, surpassed by the arrivals of Maroon 5's 2012 single, "Payphone", and The Black Eyed Peas' 2009 single, "Boom Boom Pow". "Little Things" was released in the UK and Ireland on 12 November 2012, as the second single. The track debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart of 18 November 2012, becoming One Direction's fifth top-ten appearance and second number-one hit in the United Kingdom. "Kiss You", chosen as the second and final U.S. single third and final overall single of Take Me Home, was released digitally on 17 November 2012, according to MTV News.The group and the album's lead single were featured in a Pepsi television commercial for the United States, which premiered on the Fox Broadcasting Company network on 10 October 2012. Columbia Records allowed the record to stream in full on iTunes in the week leading up to its 13 November 2012 release. In addition, One Direction promoted the album in a series of live appearances from October toward December, notably on television programmes The X Factor USA, The X Factor UK, The Today Show, and the BBC's Children in Need 2012 telethon. Additional live appearances include at the Royal Variety Performance, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, the Bambi Awards, and a headlining sold-out show at New York City's Madison Square Garden. The album's accompanying concert tour, the Take Me Home Tour, commenced at London's O2 Arena on 23 February 2013. The concert tour consists of over 100 shows in Australasia, Europe, and North America, and is set to visit arenas and stadiums from February through October 2013. Announced by member Liam Payne at the 2012 BRIT Awards in early 2012, the original concert tour was billed as the UK & Ireland Arena Tour. In mid-2012, the concert tour expanded with legs in North America and Australasia following the band's international breakthrough. In the UK and Ireland, ticket sales reached 300,000 within a day of release, which included a six-date sell out at the O2 Arena in London. In Australian and New Zealand markets, tickets grossed US$15.7 million, with all 190,000 tickets being sold for eighteen shows to be held in Australia and New Zealand.