It’s been almost 10 long, cold months since One Direction announced their hiatus. The four remaining members have seemingly hunkered down in that time to begin plotting their world domination as solo artists, and we’ve now heard rumors about Harry Styles’ $80m record deal (not to mention ‘Dunkirk’), seen hints of Louis Tomlinson’s girl band creation, and been blessed with Niall Horan’s first single ‘This Town’. Now, it looks like Liam Payne is setting his sights on chart topping in the United States.
Republic Records announced today (October 17) that Liam has joined their roster alongside major artists like Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, the Weeknd, and more. Republic Records will represent his music in the States while Capitol Records will oversee it in the U.K., and Liam’s manager Simon Oliveira of Doyen Globen says he is “more than confident [they] have assembled the best possible team alongside Capitol’s UK label to launch and shepherd Liam’s solo career.”
Co-founder and C.E.O. of Republic Records, Monte Lipman, says, “Being a member of the most successful group of the last decade, Liam has a tremendous opportunity to make an even greater impact on pop culture. We’re honored by Liam’s decision to join Republic Records, and have extremely high expectations for his solo career.”
As a massive One Direction fan, hearing these major people in music appreciating Liam’s success and everything he has to offer helps with trying to accept that we might not hear Liam sing alongside Harry, Louis, and Niall for a long time. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but thinking about seeing the boys’ individual names topping the charts and being able to buy albums from potentially all of them is a lot better than no music at all. What could be worse than an unproductive hiatus where all they do is get coffee (sorry Harry) and play golf (sorry Niall)?
And no amount of solo albums means One Direction is never, ever getting back together, so we can keep the hope alive as we blast Liam’s debut track—due out “soon.”
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