Music by One Direction, including all five of their studio albums, re-entered the Billboard charts this week after fans paid tribute to the late Liam Payne by streaming and purchasing his former boy band’s catalog.
Payne died Wednesday at age 31 after falling from a balcony in Buenos Aires. (Photo by Andrew ... [+]
All five of One Direction’s albums re-entered this week’s Billboard 200 albums chart, led by “Four” (2014) at No. 31 and “Midnight Memories” (2013) at No. 38.
Six of the band’s songs charted on this week’s Billboard Global 200, which ranks songs based on worldwide sales, streaming and radio performance, with “Night Changes” hitting No. 18.
“Night Changes,” one of the band’s most successful songs with sentimental lyrics about the fleeting nature of life, had spiked on Spotify and TikTok after Payne’s death, surging to No. 6 on Spotify’s daily chart and rising to No. 6 on TikTok’s trending songs chart as fans used the song in videos to pay tribute to Payne.
The band’s other songs on this week’s Global 200 include “Story Of My Life” (No. 23), “What Makes You Beautiful” (No. 55) and “Perfect” (No. 94).
One Direction also ranks No. 18 on this week’s Billboard Artist 100, which ranks artists based on sales, streaming and radio performance across all of an artist’s songs and albums.
One Direction previously surged to No. 2 on the global Spotify artist chart after Payne’s death, reaching a peak of No. 1 in the United Kingdom and No. 3 in the United States.
Several artists have paid tribute to Payne on stage since his death, including singer Rita Ora, with whom Payne collaborated on their 2018 song, “For You.” Ora performed the song Wednesday night, hours after his death, but became visibly emotional. “I can’t even sing this right now,” she said, as a photo of her and Payne displayed on the screen behind her. Singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers performed a cover of “Night Changes” Thursday in Boston, stating she has been “thinking how precious life is and how quickly things can change” and wanted to honor fans of Payne and One Direction’s music.
Payne’s former One Direction bandmates, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Harry Styles, shared a joint statement on the One Direction Instagram account Thursday night, and all four made individual statements between Thursday and Friday. “We’re completely devastated by the news of Liam’s passing,” the band’s joint statement says, adding the “memories we shared with him will be treasured forever.” Horan, whose concert Liam attended in Buenos Aires two weeks ago, said Payne “was the brightest in every room and always made everyone feel happy and secure” and said he feels “so fortunate I got to see him recently.” Malik admitted on Instagram he and Payne sometimes “butted heads,” but said he “lost a brother” and is “beyond devastated.” Tomlinson called Payne the “most vital part of One Direction” for “his perfect pitch, his stage presence, his gift for writing,” and Styles said he will remember his time with Payne as “among the most cherished years of my life.”
Payne died at age 31 on Wednesday after falling from the third-floor balcony of a hotel in Buenos Aires. A preliminary autopsy revealed he died from injuries involving “internal and external hemorrhage.” Police responded to the scene after a hotel manager called to report “a guest who is overwhelmed with drugs and alcohol” who was destroying his hotel room. Payne had struggled with addiction during and after his time in One Direction, which included a 100-day stay in rehab last year. Payne said he suffered from alcoholism while One Direction was at its peak in the 2010s, adding he was relieved when the band broke up in 2016 because he “needed to stop or it would kill me.”
One Direction became one of the biggest boy bands of all time after shooting to fame in 2010 on the U.K. version of “The X Factor,” where judges Simon Cowell and Nicole Scherzinger pieced the band together after all five members auditioned individually. Prior to going on hiatus, One Direction had sold 50 million records worldwide and grossed more than $570 million worldwide from concert tours. After the band’s hiatus, all five members embarked on solo music careers. Payne released one solo album, “LP1,” in 2019.
One Direction Members—Including Zayn Malik, Harry Styles—Issue Statements On Liam Payne’s Death (Forbes)