LIAM PAYNE
LP1
CAPITOL RECORDS
Just as some folk insist on smoking after a tracheotomy, so people will doubtless buy LP1, whose imaginative title arguably tells you all you need to know about it. That’s just as well for Liam Payne, one of the only people to persuade Ed Sheeran to give up his reclusive lifestyle for the sake of collaboration – aside from all the others – because the One Direction member’s debut album appears eager to sell records. Just 25 seconds into the opener, Stack It Up, he confirms “I’ve got money on my mind”, and to make sure he’s got his demographics covered, rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie appears, patronisingly confirming how female friends “now they on me, that money comin’ in”. The boyband electro-funk of Hips Don’t Lie shows he can manage on his own, and Both Ways swaggers persuasively, but Payne covers his back further, roping in Rita Ora on For You (Fifty Shades Freed), in which he plays a sensitive metrosexual and she bellows back at him, while Jonas Blue and Lennon Stella ensure Polaroid’s the tropical house hit every future reality TV show participant needs. That Sheeran fella, meanwhile, exhumes Strip That Down from wherever he buried Galway Girl, and there’s even a Christmas song, All I Want (For Christmas). Seems about right; the album’s so long it takes about a year to finish. WW