The multi-generational boy band crossover event to end them all is here: One Direction and ‘NSync have linked up — well, kind of. Liam Payne has got a new song out today, “Teardrops,” which he co-wrote with ‘NSync’s JC Chasez.
Fittingly, the track harkens back to that late-90s/turn-of-the-millenium sound, with a somber, twinkling guitar weeping behind booming pop production. In a statement, Payne said, “’Teardrops’ is about the vulnerability of heartbreak and the challenge of overcoming those moments. This song marks the start of a new beginning, there’s lots more to come in 2024.”
Along with Chasez, Payne co-wrote “Teardrops” with longtime collaborator Jamie Scott, with whom he’s been working on new music recently. Scott described the sessions as a “year-long process of self-reflection.”
It has been a tumultuous couple of years for Payne, starting back in 2022 when he went on Logan Paul’s podcast and made some loaded comments about his former 1D bandmates, specifically Zayn Malik. The backlash from fans was fierce, and along with issuing an apology, Payne later revealed the incident was one of several reasons he decided to check into a sobriety treatment program.
“My own frustrations with my own career and where I kind of landed, I took shots at everybody else, which is wrong,” he said in a video last July. He added later in the message, “I just needed to take a little bit of time out for myself actually because I kind of became somebody who I didn’t really recognize anymore. And I’m sure you guys didn’t either. I was in bad shape up until that point and I was really happy to kind of put a stopper to life and work.”
Payne then laid out plans to return to the road in Sept. 2023, but he was ultimately forced to postpone his gigs after coming down with a kidney infection. He was briefly hospitalized in Italy last year as well.
“Teardrops” marks Payne’s first new single in three years, following 2021’s “Sunshine,” which appeared on the Ron’s Gone Wrong soundtrack. His debut album, LP1, arrived in 2019 and featured hits like “Strip That Down” featuring Quavo and “Get Low” with Zedd.
