#06.11.15

Biwako in Shiga Prefecture

So, it came as little surprise when Mr. Styles contacted local charity fundraiser, Charlie Kean, offering two life-sized teddy bears for auction to benefit the newly formed Bald Is Beautiful charity that had just been launched by Mr. Kean (in conjunction with The Evening Telegraph), to help bring awareness about childhood cancer and to support local Megan Fletcher. Ms. Fletcher had just been diagnosed with a serious form of cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma.

As the face for the new Bald Is Beutiful campaign, Megan knew that with her intense chemotherapy treatments there was a strong likelihood that she would lose her hair. Wanting to turn the difficult experience of going bald in addition to painful procedures into something positive, Ms. Fletcher had her hair shaved early and gave her beautiful hair to Little Princess Trust (the same organization that Harry would eventually donate his own long hair to). This selfless act was met by others willing to do the same,  some of those included her schoolmates in a show of support.

Shared below, (credit to Lindsey Hamilton’s article on 24.09.15 in thetele.co.uk ), are pictures of courageous Megan and her family as she donates her hair for Little Princess Trust:

G Jennings pic, Bald is Beautiful, ( cancer story by Lindsey) 14 year old Megan Fletcher with mum Shona

  So, in true form of his generous spirit, Mr. Styles took the perfect opportunity when moving from his house in London, to help a local cancer charity campaign; by donating items he wouldn’t be moving to his new home. His offer was quite a generous one, given that these were Steiff Bears, made by the world famous teddy bear design company,Steiff, each costing around £13,000. Through his donation Harry helped raise an additional £20,000 for Bald Is Beautiful to help the local youth, like Megan Fletcher.

REVIEW  ONE DIRECTION “Made in the A.M.”

THE GRADE B+

BOTTOM LINE The closing of one chapter of the British sensation’s career sounds like the opening of four more.                                   

                                                                                                           “Made in the A.M.” (Columbia) does not sound like the end of One Direction.

Oh sure, there was plenty of (mostly) manufactured concern earlier this year when Zayn Malik abruptly left the group and the remaining quartet – Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson – announced they wouldn’t tour to support this album. They also decided to take a hiatus next year before they started anything new as One Direction.

Now, most adults would say this plan makes total sense, considering that the group has essentially rolled non-stop since forming in 2010 on the British version of “The X Factor.” (“Made in the A.M.” is the fifth album One Direction has released in five years.) However, the celebrity-industrial complex being what it is and the fact that nothing drives website traffic quite like click-happy, hashtag-wielding Directioners, what should have been a regular announcement was revved up to catastrophic proportions for pronouncements of breakups and in-fighting.

“Made in the A.M.” should put that to rest. The sleek, rock-influenced pop album – produced mainly by John Ryan and Julian Bunetta and co-written by Payne and Tomlinson working as a team and Horan and Styles each working with collaborators – ambitiously tries to reconstruct musical history in One Direction’s image while also showing where each one may be headed should they try out solo careers for a while.

The lead single, “Drag Me Down,” effectively co-opted the new wave energy of The Police, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The yearning “Infinity” combines chiming U2 guitars with a 21-piece string section and soaring synths. “Olivia,” co-written by Styles, is crafted to sound like The Beatles at their bounciest, while “I Want to Write You a Song” sounds like early Paul McCartney acoustics. “What a Feeling” conjures up laid-back Fleetwood Mac and yacht rock, while “Walking in the Wind” is a direct descendant of Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” right down to the spiky Afro-pop guitars.

For young listeners, all those references may sound dangerously close to schoolwork, but it’s to One Direction and their collaborators’ credit that they personalize it all enough to make it sound like they dreamed it up themselves.

They are all even more effective when they mine styles closer to home. On “Temporary Fix,” co-written by Horan, they build a power-pop cousin to “Since U Been Gone” and then puff it up to meet their own stadium-filling specifications, before closing with hooks that could have come straight from The Strokes’ debut.

One Direction also shows how they can bridge the gap between old and new in songs like “End of the Day,” which moves oddly from a playful opening verse to a stomping rock chorus and back again. Though the handclaps and acoustic guitar pushed high in the mix keep it current, the melody of “History” sounds like it could have come from a ’50s doo-wop group, though the guys sing in unison rather than in harmony.