While still a teenager, Liam Payne achieved global mega-fame as a member of One Direction, the incredibly hard-working and likeable five-piece who proved that the pop boyband was no ’90s throwback. When their bubblegum rush of a debut single, ‘What Makes You Beautiful’, stormed the Billboard Hot 100 in March 2012 (it had already topped the UK singles chart the previous September), their record label’s MD, Sonny Takhar, shrewdly noted: “Sometimes you feel the song’s the star, but it’s not like that here – it’s the act.”
Takhar also observed, again astutely, that massive social media popularity had “never broken an act globally like this before”. The band’s endlessly passionate, continent-spanning fanbase, the Directioners, would continue to turbocharge One Direction’s record-breaking success until they announced an indefinite hiatus in January 2016. In the process, the group helped to pave the way for countless other acts from across the genre spectrum who built their careers with support from a fiercely loyal online following.
Payne, who has died at the age of 31, was born in 1993 in Wolverhampton, a former industrial town in England’s West Midlands region. He displayed an early aptitude for sports and, as a member of the Wolverhampton & Bilston Athletics Club, got up early each day to run five miles before school. However, as adolescence approached, this ambitious son of a nurse and an aircraft fitter switched his focus to singing because, he later recalled, it was “the thing that made my parents proudest”.
In 2008, 14-year-old Payne auditioned for The X Factor, the bombastic British talent show that had propelled Leona Lewis to global fame a year earlier. Payne made it through to judges’ houses, the final stage before the live shows, but was cut by the show’s canniest judge, Simon Cowell, who advised him “come back in two years”. Payne duly in 2010, but found himself eliminated before judges’ houses. His second – or perhaps third – shot at X Factor glory came when guest judge Nicole Scherzinger suggested that he could be repurposed into a boyband with four other talented male soloists who hadn’t progressed: Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson.
Liam Payne (centre) with One Direction in 2013 CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Cowell later claimed it was his idea to put the group together, but either way, it was a masterstroke. Though One Direction finished the competition in third, pipped by solo singers Matt Cardle and Rebecca Ferguson, they were the series’ breakout stars and soon signed a deal with Cowell’s Syco Records. After they dropped their debut single ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ in September 2011, the group’s success was so stratospheric and comprehensive that it almost seemed pre-ordained. In 2014, they became the first band in history to have each of their first four albums debut at Number One on the Billboard 200.
They also racked up 14 UK Top 10 singles between 2011 and 2015, a hit rate made possible by an unfathomably tough work schedule. During their half-decade reign, One Direction completed four world tours, the last two of which were stadium-only juggernauts. Understandably, the band members sometimes needed to let off steam, and Payne was, for a time, thrust into the sensible older brother role. “We’ve got plates being thrown out the window, mattresses being ridden down the stairs, and I’m getting calls from the manager saying: ‘You need to sort it out,’” he recalled in 2019.
Payne also helped to shape the group’s infectious, increasingly rock-leaning sound. He co-wrote over 30 One Direction songs – second among band members only to Tomlinson – including their folky lament ‘Night Changes’ and Springsteen-esque gem ‘Steal My Girl’. The band’s songs were so brilliantly crafted and buoyantly performed by Payne and his bandmates that they never got pigeonholed as a supposedly “disposable” pop act. For four years in a row between 2012 and 2015, One Direction were nominated in various Best Band categories at the fan-voted NME Awards, winning Best British Band in 2013 and Best Live Band the following year. In 2012 and 2013, however, they also suffered the ignominy of being voted Worst Band, a reflection of how polarising their success was in an era when genre divides were more entrenched than they are now.
After One Direction went their separate ways in 2016, just under a year after Malik’s departure left them to continue as a four-piece, Payne launched a solo career and became a father. He and then-partner Cheryl, a Girls Aloud member and X Factor judge, welcomed their son Bear in March 2017. Later that year, Payne released his slinky debut single ‘Strip That Down’, which reflected his personal fondness for Justin Timberlake-style pop-R&B and serious standing within the music industry: it was co-written by Ed Sheeran and featured a rap verse from Quavo of hip-hop group Migos.
With more than a billion Spotify streams to date, it remains his biggest solo hit, though he also charted well in various territories with 2018’s ‘For You’, a soaring duet with Rita Ora, and the same year’s Latin-flecked J Balvin collaboration ‘Familiar’. Though his 2019 debut album ‘LP1’ peaked at a disappointing number 17 in the UK, it proved durable enough to earn a gold certification. In May 2023, Payne revealed that he was working on a second solo album, this time “with more creative control”, though this was incomplete at the time of his death. Given his high profile and enduring popularity, it wouldn’t have been hard to imagine him returning to the chart’s upper reaches.
In the same interview, Payne said he was feeling “amazing” after achieving 100 days of sobriety. In previous press rounds, he had spoken unselfconsciously about struggling with mental health issues and alcohol abuse, both during his One Direction days and beyond. Still, admirable candour and a constant desire to push forward are only part of his legacy. Payne, who is survived by family including his son Bear, played a pivotal role in making One Direction a worldwide phenomenon who turned a generation of young people into pop fans. As befits a star who rose to fame in the social media era, he leaves behind music, memes and memories that will be cherished for many years to come.
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