- I thought I could watch this like a normal person,
but I still can't. Ah!
- He's the bad boy, too. He's on a motorcycle.
♪ (industrial intro) ♪
- (FBE) So Alberto, when's the last time you thought about
One Direction? - Not in a long time.
What has ten feet and doesn't exist anymore?
One Direction.
- When Harry Styles released Lights Up, I was suddenly
brought back to my One Direction days.
- This morning. Directly in front of my closet,
I have my One Direction dolls that are still in the box
right above my shoes, so when I wake up,
I see my boyfriends and then I start my day.
- (FBE) We did a similar episode with our adults,
but since all the members of One Direction have
released a lot of new music since then,
we thought it would be interesting to take a look
at each of their most recent singles to see how they're
progressing as solo artists. - Okay, so I know
the orgy clip from Harry Styles' new song
and nothing else.
- I follow a couple of their solo careers
like Harry and Zayn. This feels very full circle,
'cause when I first started React, I reacted to One Direction.
♪ You don't know you're beautiful ♪
- (FBE) So, the first song we'll playing is Harry Styles'
brand new single Lights Up. Have you heard it?
- It's a great one with a great video.
- Oh, I'm so excited. We're cool, we're calm.
We're not gonna get sweaty yet.
- Okay, here we go, HS2.
- That's a lot of bodies.
- Why is everyone touching him?
- Damn, very sensual off the bat.
- I thought I could watch this like a normal person,
but I still can't. Ah!
He's on the back of a motorcycle.
- Ooh, okay. A little bisexuality.
- Yeah, I've seen this on twitter only a million trillion times.
- He makes a lot of different looks and sounds in this one.
He sounds even a little like Zayn on his newer music, honestly.
♪ Lights up and they know who you are ♪
♪ Know who you are Do you know who you are? ♪
- I love this new era of music for him.
♪ Shine ♪ - Ah!
Oh my God, I love the sexual fluidity.
- ♪ I'm not ever going back ♪ I like the chorus a lot.
♪ Ever going back ♪ - Such a good song.
I wonder what that set smelled like while they
were filming this.
- I wanna swim in this sea of people with him.
- I wanna get sweaty with Harry Styles.
♪ I'm not ever ♪ - His voice is so good.
His last album was a little more rock to me.
This feels a little more mellow and artisty.
He can do whatever the hell he wants.
He's Harry Styles.
- He's becoming more experimental as he evolves.
I think One Direction was as safe as you could go
because obviously, it was more for teens.
As he's advancing forward, it's like, okay, this was
a little more out there. This is Harry himself
and now he's like, "Oh, I'm experimenting with
all these different visuals plus types of music."
- It's so edgy and it's also very 2019, I guess.
One thing that I really love about Harry Styles
is that he's always seemed to be very comfortable
with himself, so that's something that I admire about him.
♪ I like the way you talk ♪
- Oh, he looks so grown up.
- I don't think I've heard this.
- Oh, what a smug looking cute boy.
- This sounds like it should be the background music
to a Grey's Anatomy episode.
- I feel like I'm watching a Disney Channel original movie.
♪ I wanna blow your mind Just come with me, I swear ♪
- Eh.
- Yo, that's a grandma, homie.
- Wow, Niall is coming for everyone's throats.
- I wish Niall Horan would look at me walking down the street.
♪ Every time I turn around you disappear ♪
- I think it's cute to see him because I feel like
he grew up the most since he started.
- He looks like he's walking out of an explosion or something.
♪ What's your name? Let me treat you ♪
- I think they could have done better.
No disrespect. His voice, I think deserves
a lot more than that.
- It was cute. It was simple.
I definitely liked Harry's video a lot better.
It was a little more creative.
- I liked his vibe, his charisma.
♪ I don't wanna be broke when I D-I-E ♪
♪ Wanna be living it up in VIP ♪
- Okay, this is not what I thought it was gonna be at all.
♪ I've been working and getting by ♪
- This is very different than the other guys.
♪ 'Cause I got dreams for you and I ♪
♪ So I got money on my mind If you wanna stack it up ♪
♪ Man, you gotta work for it I-I-I-I-I-I ♪
- This is Justin Timberlake.
- You know what? He's doing his best.
♪ But that ain't enough to get me by ♪
♪ So I stack it up, man I gotta work for it ♪
- I feel like his music is also a little sexy, but simple.
♪ Money on my mind ♪ - Okay, I like this one too,
'cause it's about the hustle. It's about him trying
to get some racks and [bleep], so I can always relate to that.
- This is his vibe. This is what he's been about
since his solo career.
- This is very consistent with his solo music in general.
Everything has the same vibe where it wants to be hip hop,
but it's staying very safe. This is definitely different
from One Direction's sound.
- Even though I know this one isn't as strong as the others,
I'm still so with it because I was so far up
One Direction's asses.
♪ You're a nightmare on the dance floor ♪
- Drone shots, okay.
- I've always found Loius' voice to be really unique.
♪ While I'm waiting ♪ - It sounds very British to me.
- Very Beatles.
♪ The devil in my brain whispering my name ♪
- He's a bad boy now.
- He's the bad boy, too. He's on a motorcycle.
♪ And won't let go ♪ - I kinda like this.
This is like throwback middle school vibes.
♪ You kill my mind ♪ - I didn't know My Chemical Romance
was making a comeback.
- Oh, I like this. I would listen to this.
- Okay, Loius. Look at you.
- See, this is fun, too. It's upbeat,
but it's not as manufactured as One Direction was.
♪ You kill my mind Raise my body ♪
- Wow, I love that visual.
- This is very different from the other songs.
- I feel like he never got older.
His face, I feel like he's just always looked like that.
- He's literally going the modern Beatle route.
I kinda like that because it's not overdone.
- You can tell that he's taking influences from other rock artists
and this feels more like him now than it was before
when he was doing more electronic stuff.
- Almost reminds me of Hozier a little bit.
I feel like it's all more indie because One Direction was
literally so-- to me, it was so pop.
♪ Walks in the place, hands on her waist ♪
♪ Gun on her thigh, big shooter game ♪
- Zayn has always had such an amazing voice.
- Okay baseline, you just showed up.
- He kinda can do a little bit of a funky tone
to his stuff, but also have the R&B soul to him.
- Oh, is he a super assassin?
- I feel like it's a stunt double, but I'd like to think that's Zayn.
- ♪ Sour diesel I can't stop the feeling ♪
Parkour, ooh.
♪ Can't stop the feeling ♪ - Oh, got him.
- I can picture this in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
♪ Didn't feel it seep in She burn, she burn, she burn ♪
♪ Like a sour diesel ♪
- Funk. Spy funk.
- I'd definitely listen to this in my car
driving down the beach.
- I like the choreography in this.
- This is like an action movie.
♪ She burn, she burn, she burn like a sour diesel ♪
- I don't know what sour diesel means,
but I'm with it. His first album sounded
a lot more like the Weeknd and now, I don't even know
how to explain it, but it sounds more like him.
- He has become the artist he wanted to be,
which I think is really cool even though we were all
bummed as hell when he left. We were distraught.
He had that time to really evolve and go from this
cookie cutter pop artist to the bad boy he needed to be.
They all definitely have their own tone to them now
and we can kinda recognize them all as more adults.
- I really like that song. It kinda gives me
Lenny Kravitz vibes. I feel like this song
is also a departure from his early solo music.
This is not like Pillow Talk. They each bring a different
sound to the table and so I feel like people
can appreciate them for those reasons.
- (FBE) So now that you've seen all of their most recent
solo music, we have to ask of the songs you heard today,
which one was your favorite? - The one from Niall Horan,
'cause it was just upbeat and poppy and reminded me
of Maroon 5-ish.
- Zayn's. It just gets inside your ear
a little bit. You're just like, ooh.
This [bleep] slaps.
- It had to be Louis'. I love alternative music.
I'm a scene girl at heart.
- Lights Up and Sour Diesel were definitely my favorites.
- To be honest, Sour Diesel is still stuck in my head right now.
- I'm biased, Harry. The story he tells in his song
is really good. It correlates with what's
going on in the video.
- It's obviously Harry Styles, but as much as I love Harry Styles,
all of the boys, their new singles are doing
so well. They're so good
and I love how all of them have really just found their own
in their solo careers.
- (FBE) One thing that a lot of people talk about
throughout any artist's career is how their music evolves.
For these five artists in particular, based on what
you know about them and how they started,
how would you describe their sound as individuals
versus their sound as a group? - No, I feel like it's the same
because I feel like the One Direction songs
that I have heard, they still kind of incorporate
rock and pop and these guys are still doing pop.
- It's so different. It changed so much.
I mean, as a group, when you're a collective,
you don't really have a chance to differ off too much.
Now as individuals, everyone has their own
aesthetic or sense of direction that they're going into,
not One Direction anymore.
- As a group, they were super pop, but now,
it feels like most of them are taking a lot more
rock influences.
- They're finally becoming the artists that they
originally intended to be, but it took One Direction
to give them the direction.
- They're 500% better as individual artists.
This is not always true, but I feel like they have to
come together and make this more generic thing
and I think the enemy of creativity in music
is being generic, so I think most groups,
when they break up, they usually will find
their own individual flavors.
- They had so much fun music and I loved it.
I saw them eight times. But I was 12-13 at the time
and that was the music that spoke to me,
but now, they're actually-- actual artists.
They each are falling into different genres.
They're still in that pop mix. None of them really left that,
but it's more real music than it was before.
- (FBE) So finally, One Direction is technically still on hiatus.
Do you think they'll ever come back or do you think
this hiatus will turn into them permanently going
in their own directions? - Yeah, I don't think this
is a hiatus. I think they're done.
Even if they did, I can't really see what kind of music
they would be making together.
- They're way far from the One Direction sound
at this rate that it's gonna be so hard for them
to get back together.
- They'll probably come back, 'cause they'll make money
coming back.
- They wanna make a [bleep] ton of money, then they should
go back together on a One Direction tour.
Everyone who listened to them growing up would be super into it.
- I hope they come back, but I know they won't,
but a girl can dream.
- Everyone does a comeback. That's So Raven did a comeback.
I just hope it's not when they're really old, to be honest,
but that's probably when they'll do it, 'cause that's when
they'll get all the moms.
- They're gonna be Backstreet Boys or NSYNC.
NSYNC, they had Justin Timberlake go off and be super successful,
which can very much be Harry Styles and then
they'll never really get back together except for maybe
one performance, or they'll end up coming back
fifteen years later like the Backstreet Boys
and maybe have a Vegas run.
- Thanks for watching this episode of College Kids React.
Shoutout to Vincent Cordi.
- Subscribe and hit the bell so you never miss an episode.
- Which of these songs were your favorite?
Let us know in the comments.
- Bye.
- Hi guys, Josecarlos here, producer at FBE.
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