JAKARTA - Louis Tomlinson revealed a surprising fact about why he limited the selection of One Direction songs in his solo stage appearance list.
The 34-year-old singer admitted that he started to feel awkward to perform a number of hit songs by One Direction because of age and lyrics that were considered too vulgar or daring to be performed by an adult man.
Although he still appreciates the long history that has made his name, Tomlinson said the process of curating old songs is a challenge in itself ahead of his upcoming tour.
He admitted that he had to be very selective because he felt that some of the lyrics of One Direction's songs were no longer relevant to his current image.
"To start with, I want to choose one of the ones I wrote - but the biggest challenge is finding lyrics that feel worthy of being sung as a 34-year-old man," Tomlinson said, quoted by Billboard, Thursday, January 15.
"And it's actually not an easy thing to do, because some of One Direction's lyrics are very vulgar," he continued.
However, Tomlinson still tried to give a new touch to fans by arranging some old songs to better suit his current musical style.
He gave an example of the song "Night Changes" which is now performed with a faster tempo - inspired by Sam Fender.
For him, changing the arrangement is the best way to integrate past memories into his solo stage set naturally.
Speaking about the legacy of One Direction, which has been on hiatus for almost a decade, Tomlinson believes that no group has really been able to duplicate their uniqueness.
He briefly mentioned BTS' presence, which had broken One Direction's records in its heyday.
"There was a time when BTS was on the rise, and I felt, every time I went on Twitter, they just took one of our recordings for something - something best-selling, and they took it again! It's a bit unfortunate. "But I'm not jealous of them - that's the nature of the music industry, keep moving."
He remains adamant that One Direction are an anomaly in the music industry for breaking the mould of the traditional boyband.
According to him, almost every boyband before them had a specific mold such as wearing uniforms and dancing, but One Direction managed to free themselves from the mold so it was difficult to find a similar group until now.
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