Liam Payne Helped Unlock One Direction’s Potential

Liam Payne’s voice opens the debut One Direction single, his face the first to receive a close-up in its music video. After five teenage boys are shown horsing around on a Malibu beach for a few seconds, the shot dissolves into Liam’s perfect coif, his unbuttoned shirt, his disarming smile. He turns to the side in the middle of the opening line — partially to re-establish his smolder, but also to cast aside any doubts. “You’re insecure,” Liam sings, waves crashing behind the 17-year-old singer, his eyes readjusting to meet the world. “Don’t know what for.”

“What Makes You Beautiful” helped One Direction, a boy band from the U.K. that formed on The X Factor, start off a smash upon its 2011 release, as a brilliant pop debut with pinpoint melodies, power-pop production and immediate flashes of personality from its five members. Yet while Harry Styles stuck the landing on the stripped-down bridge, Zayn Malik oozed emotion in the second verse, and Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson showcased their respective charms in slow-motion music video shots, Liam’s opening verse adopted an ultra-confident stance that was crucial to the song’s tone.

His voice was sturdy, and deep beyond his years — “Being the way that you are is enou-u-ugh,” he sang with utmost certainty, as the final syllable quietly echoes upward to set up his 1D bandmates with higher registers. The opening verse is not the flashiest part of the song, but its subtle delivery helped unlock what was to follow. It’s what made Liam indispensable; it’s what he would do in One Direction for years to come.

Payne died on Wednesday (Oct. 16) at the age of 31, a tragic loss for anyone who felt connected to the rocket ship of One Direction’s global stardom and invested in Liam as an integral part of that whirlwind of success. Over the course of the group’s five studio albums, One Direction’s sound congealed to create some of the most satisfying popular music of the 2010s — from the plucky pop of debut album Up All Night to the arena-rock riffs of Midnight Memories to the sun-kissed sing-alongs of Made in the A.M. — as their international popularity exploded. And within that sonic evolution, Liam turned himself into the group’s jack of all trades, a gracious utility player who could sing high when needed, complement his bandmates, and uncork a lead vocal full of verve and power.

There are plenty of instances of Liam commanding the spotlight in a One Direction hit, from “Best Song Ever” to “Steal My Girl” to “History,” and as the group graduated to the biggest venues on the planet, he demonstrated an ability to perform to enormous crowds while maintaining an assuredness and affability that made every stadium show seem downright intimate. The culture that 1D created over their run prioritized inclusion, and never talked down to their younger fans; Liam was a key part of reimagining the longstanding boy band model as a more global, social media-savvy and ultimately more accessible pop phenomenon.

And as the group’s members started gearing up for solo careers beyond One Direction, Liam became a more prolific co-writer, and contributed to some of the group’s strongest late-period material. After co-writing songs like “Story of My Life,” “Diana,” “Little Black Dress” and “Right Now” on 2013’s Midnight Memories, Liam helped mold One Direction’s most complete album, 2014’s Four, with credits on top-notch songs like “Fireproof,” “Clouds,” “Fool’s Gold” and “No Control,” among others. After co-writing six songs on 2015’s Made in the A.M., Liam had established himself as a creative presence in the studio — which would help guide him as he ventured into post-1D work in the late 2010s, on his own for the first time since entering The X Factor and then being grouped with four other teen boys.

“To be honest with you, I wasn’t going to do a solo venture,” Liam told Billboard in 2017, ahead of the release of his debut solo single, the rhythmic pop song “Strip That Down” with Quavo. “I was just going to go into songwriting and carry on and do that. But then I was like, ‘You’ve been trying to do this since you were 14 years old. You would be ridiculously stupid to turn down the option to have a deal.’” And Liam delivered on that deal: “Strip That Down” reached the top 10 of the Hot 100 and became a top 40 radio staple for months on end.

Liam kept collaborating with other pop personalities (Zedd, J Balvin, Rita Ora) while exploring hip-hop, R&B and dance music; his 2019 debut, LP1, was supposed to receive a follow-up in the near future, following the release of the single “Teardrops” earlier this year. As we remember Liam following his tragic death, we must also reflect on a musical journey that was cut far too short, with questions about what he would have continued pursuing as a solo artist, as well as any further collaboration with his One Direction mates, now left unanswered.

Yet in the same way those opening six words of “What Makes You Beautiful” still echo in our brains more than a decade after they rolled off of Liam’s tongue, One Direction’s impact on modern popular music cannot be forgotten — and Liam’s role in creating that seismic shift was indispensable. In ways large and small, he helped chart the course of a quintet that took over the world, a team player who was instrumental to the group’s foundation. One Direction’s music was always going to live on and reach future generations, but upon this sad occasion, Liam’s place within that music should be celebrated.