New York, NY (Top40 Charts) We're going to have to be careful about writing this article because we know how passionate One Direction fans can be! The world's biggest boy band left a hole in the hearts of millions of fans when they went on 'hiatus' a few years ago, and some of those wounds have yet to heal. The band never officially split up, and because of that, their devoted fan base still harbors hope that one day, there will be a grand reunion, and the boys will come back together to dominate the charts once more.
Just a few short weeks ago, it began to look like the time for a reunion might be approaching. Just as Take That eventually reformed after years apart and were bigger than ever before, One Direction appeared to be ready to reunify and start working on new material. Members of the band who hadn't been in touch with each other for years suddenly began to follow each other on social media again, and the press began to speculate that something big was coming to mark the band's tenth anniversary. It might even still be the case that there is a tenth-anniversary event on the cards - but it will happen without at least one of the original lineup.
As some of you will no doubt already have predicted, the holdout is Zayn Malik. The black sheep of the One Direction family was the first to leave the band - a decision that precipitated the band taking a break just as Take That quickly fell apart after the departure of Robbie Williams in the 1990s. Malik spoke to the press many times after his departure to say that he was never truly a fan of the music the band was making, and never felt at home in the band. Time doesn't seem to have changed his opinion. We don't know what level of contact he's had with his former bandmates - if any at all - but Liam Payne has now confirmed that if the boys are getting together again, Zayn won't be participating.
Before we start to look upon this as a snub, we should probably take a moment to remember how One Direction got together in the first place. They weren't a gang of childhood friends with common interests or a shared history. They were thrown together by Simon Cowell during the making of 'The X Factor,' as randomly as the symbols on the reels of an online slots. It just so happened to be that that the combination paid out like a winning line on an online slots game, too. We have no idea whether Simon Cowell is a gambler. He may or may not play online slots regularly. If he does, though, he'll never have had a win as big as One Direction was no matter how regularly he plays. It was a once-in-a-lifetime lucky break. The lack of a shared past between the band members, though, meant that there was no guarantee that all of them would get along. Reading between the lines, it seems likely that Zayn was the one who always felt like he was on the fringes.
If he was even considering rejoining the band for the sake of his fans, the comments made to the press by Payne have probably put him off the idea. According to Liam, Zayn never wanted to be famous anyway. He only auditioned for 'The X Factor' because his mum wanted him to, and he had no great passion or drive to perform. Payne says that Malik is a great musician and loves music, but he hates performing and was never comfortable with the band's level of fame.
There are many reasons to believe that Payne has a point. Although he has released the occasional track since leaving the band, Zayn Malik hasn't performed in public since 2016, citing anxiety issues for his departure from the limelight. In the little musical output we've heard from him since 2015, his tastes appear to be radically different from anything he made while he was a member of the band. If he never enjoyed being on a stage or in the newspapers, and he didn't believe in the music he was making in the recording studio, it's no surprise that he eventually felt unable to continue. In fact, the bigger surprise is that he was able to continue for so long in the first place. Going back to the gambling analogy we used earlier; if we had to put money on it, we'd bet that we'll never see Zayn Malik sharing a stage with his former bandmates again. We know that isn't the news that the fans want to hear, but it's the most obvious conclusion to come to based on all of the available evidence.
Not having Zayn doesn't mean that One Direction can't still get back together and release a new album. We hate to keep coming back to Take That, but they're the most obvious comparison to make. Take That had hits without Robbie Williams. When they reformed without Williams ten years after they split up, they sold even more records than they had done when he was in the band. They're even still going today despite the subsequent departure of Jason Orange, which has left the formerly-fab-five as a trio. If Take That can do it as the elder statesmen of the boy band scene, we have little doubt that One Direction can do it as well. It's a shame for the fans that they'll likely never see the full lineup again, but we suspect they'll agree that it's better to have some form of a One Direction reunion instead of no One Direction reunion at all.
With Malik's emergence from retirement off the cards, all eyes now turn to the date of One Direction's Ten Year anniversary later this year to see what they come up with. The press has clearly been briefed to expect something - so whether that's a tour, a new album, or a one-off reunion gig, we expect it to make huge headlines all over the world when it's announced. Until then, we're watching and waiting.
