Remembering Liam Payne | Pop Recap #19

Happy Sunday! Welcome to another edition of the Pop Recap newsletter, filled with all the trending things you need to know in the entertainment world. This week’s edition will look slightly different than usual. I am currently on vacation for two weeks, soaking up the sun in Florida and enjoying so many pop culture things, of course - including attending Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Miami and visiting Walt Disney World in Orlando.

With that being said, this Pop Recap (and maybe next week’s too) will be abbreviated. Here’s your quick rundown of news from this week…

🎥 Martin Scorsese’s Beatles documentary, Beatles ‘64, set to premiere on Disney+ on November 29. Megan Thee Stallion’s Amazon Prime documentary will premiere on October 31.

🎭Sadie Sink will star in John Proctor Is The Villain on Broadway and there’s a Dirty Dancing musical in the works.

🎶The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction aired last night and is now streaming on Disney Plus. Megan Thee Stallion will release Act II of her Megan album on October 25, Taylor Swift is releasing an Eras Tour book, Shawn Mendes was interviewed by John Mayer for Interview Magazine and Billie Eilish has a new collaboration with Converse.

📺 Last night, Michael Keaton hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guest Billie Eilish. If you read my Sunday Morning Live on Substack, I apologize, I was too exhausted to stay up for the show last night and this morning is hectic getting ready for Eras Tour so I skipped this week :( But I saw Billie Eilish performed “WILDFLOWER” and that made my day. I will 100% be back for John Mulaney/Chappell Roan on 11/2.

John Mulaney, Ego Nwodim and Sam Richardson have joined the cast of Poker Face Season 2 on Peacock, Shrinking and Slow Horses have been renewed at AppleTV+ and Disney+ is getting an Iron Man animated series for kids.

Liam Payne has passed away at the age of 31.

Celebrity deaths are often very sad to me. I’m lucky enough to not have experienced loss too often in my personal life and when a celebrity dies, it's so highly publicized. There have been many celebrity deaths that felt notably upsetting. Kobe Bryant, Christina Grimmie, Prince, Chadwick Boseman and Cameron Boyce come to mind. But this one really got me. Liam’s death is tragic, not just in how it happened but in its reflection of the price of fame. However, its also the first time an artist whom I was a massive fan of passed away.

Like many other girls around the world, I discovered One Direction in 2012 as their hit single “What Makes You Beautiful,” played nonstop on Nickelodeon. That discovery kicked off a whirlwind four years of fandom for the massive boyband, followed up by many more years of supporting the guys in their current solo careers.

Some people may think it’s silly to care about the death of a celebrity. Its not, and if you don’t agree I can attest that since Liam’s passing, so many therapists have shown up on social media to share their takes on why its normal that teenage girls in their twenties around the world mourn the loss of Liam Payne. Someone on X shared a poem titled The Grief That Is Not Ours, and I thought it was especially poignant. “Not all grief comes from reciprocated love; sometimes it comes from respect, gratitude, humanity, familiarity - or the simple act of having a heart that beats and breaks.”

I may not have known Liam. I never even met Liam. But his music and time in One Direction had a lasting impact on my life, and that matters. 

Besides the joy their music and content gave me, the band impacted me indirectly too. I joined social media because of One Direction. There are so many wonderful people in my life right now that I would have never met if not for our shared love of One Direction. My time in the fandom engaging with others - live tweeting events and breaking down song lyrics and music videos - is what inspired me to want to work in the entertainment industry, because I loved the way music and pop culture could bring people together and create community, and I wanted to work on the side of the industry that could help create that feeling for others too.

A lot of people have been saying how Liam’s death has brought them back to their younger selves. One Direction was a huge part of so many of our childhoods and teen years and there’s so much nostalgia there. For many of us, we're not yet in a stage where we’re comfortable in our adulthood and can look back in the past with just joy. I look back at my childhood with an added sense of longing. I want to be there again. And now it feels like another part of it is gone, serving as a reminder that the more we grow, the more we lose too.

If I could go back in time and ask my 13-year-old self where I thought the band would be in ten years, I would have responded that they’d still be together because they’re like brothers. They would still be selling out worldwide tours, breaking records with their music video releases and winning awards for their albums. 13-year-old me would have been crushed to know that the group would go on an indefinite hiatus (break-up!!!) after five amazing years. But even worse, she never would have imagined that ten years later, one of the members would no longer be alive.

My parents are really into music, and they have their favorite artists that they grew up with. Many of them have passed. Prince, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, the list could go on. The difference is, my parents are in their late 50s and their favorite artists were either also that age or much older. It’s not that those deaths are less sad because they’re older, but I guess I always thought I would be their age, with kids, before I had to say goodbye to my favorite artists too. I saw a TikTok of a girl saying “we were supposed to be in retirement homes when members of One Direction started passing away,” and I think that sums up the feeling pretty well.

At least I would be able to tell 13-year-old me that despite never getting to see One Direction live together like I always dreamed, I have had the pleasure of making so many memories seeing the guys solo. I saw Liam at a concert in December 2017. He was the fourth member to launch his solo career post-hiatus and I really loved the stuff he put out then. I still remember how happy I felt getting to see him live that day and I’m grateful I get to have that as a memory.

I’m not ashamed to admit that even up to now I truly believed that someday, for some reason or way, the guys would get back together even if just for a brief farewell reunion tour. It seems since 1D went on hiatus in 2015, I’ve seen every other group come back…NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, Big Time Rush, Jonas Brothers, and even Oasis who had a reputation for despising each other. I had hoped 1D would do something for their 10 year anniversary back in 2021, and while they didn’t, I was readily aware that next year is their 15th anniversary and every once in a while I would think, maybe something will happen then. It’s truly upsetting to know now that we’ll never see the five members of One Direction together again. 

Liam’s passing is allowing us to all reminisce on the joy and fun of the 1D days. At first, it was weird seing my timeline flooded with photos of such a familiarity for the first time in so long and then remembering the sad reason why I was seeing them. I stayed up to watch that TV appearance, I watched that music video live when it dropped. It’s so odd seeing all the tributes roll in. It doesn’t feel real, but its bringing us all back together.

Watching fans in cities all over the world come together to celebrate Liam has been bittersweet and a reminder of how huge One Direction really was.

I could go on and on about what made the 1D days so special. One thing on my mind though is the idea that we were a bunch of 12-year-olds and we felt like we had so much power in the music industry. It’s hilarious to think about now, but they were the biggest band and we were the biggest, “most powerful” fandom. The guys would always refer to us as the greatest team and we would work together to help them chart, win awards and break records. At that age, you don’t want to feel like a child anymore and the fandom almost gave us a pseudo sense of power. We liked something, wanted to see it win, and made it happen! Where else could we do something like that at that age. It’s not like we could vote in a real election or anything so the Teen Choice Awards had to be enough. There’s just a great excitement in feeling powerful in some way as a preteen, when the people in the real world aren’t ready to see you as an adult as you wish at that age.

It’s kinda cool to see that “greatest team” come into action once again in Liam’s death, especially at a time when theres so much negativity in fandom culture. Besides the memorials, fans rallied to get media outlets to remove invasive images of Liam’s body and paparazzi pics of grieving One Direction members off the Internet. Fans in Argentina even formed a human shield as Liam’s father arrived to the hotel where he passed to block paparazzi from snapping photos of the private moment. He was later seen thanking fans for the memorial made at the hotel for his son.

Anyways, I’ve written a lot and as I said, I’m on vacation and I don’t mean to get super sappy. But as I walk around in Disney World I think about all the past road trips down here where I would blast One Direction in the car to pass the time, or the silly vlog I have of my trip down in Orlando from middle school, where all the photos play out in a slideshow to the tune of “Best Song Ever.” But I’m on the road to Miami to see Taylor Swift in concert and I’m also getting excited for that same younger me, who would lose her mind to know I’m seeing Taylor for the fourth time today. I became a huge fan of Taylor Swift and One Direction around the same time in elementary school. Besides Disney Channel stars, like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, they are the only two artists that I can firmly state have been the musical constant in my life from when I was a child until now, so there’s an odd dissonance where I’m excited to see one in concert while I equally say goodbye to the other.

I’ll leave you with my favorite One Direction song. One that I loved as a preteen for its melody and cute music video, but now cherish as I can now relate a bit more to its message on time passing and nostalgia. Does it ever drive you crazy, just how fast the Night Changes?

Other great One Direction songs being reshaped in light of Liam’s passing include the Made in the AM tracks “Walking in the Wind” and “History,” which I will not be watching the music video to anytime soon.

Some my favorite songs Liam’s solo career include “For You,” “Get Low” and “Familiar.”

I’ll always remember Liam Payne and I’ll forever cherish my days rocking with the biggest band on the planet.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of the Pop Recap newsletter! If you enjoyed it, make sure to share with a friend. Stay connected with the Pop Recap and Fan Fave community on social media.

xx Katrina