One Direction member Louis Tomlinson recently opened up about the music industry evolving over the years, confessing that he used to feel “ashamed” every time he would notice K-pop boy band BTS beating any of their records.
During an interview with Billboard, the 34-year-old singer playfully lamented, “There was a time when BTS was on the way up, and I felt like, every time I logged into Twitter, they’d just taken one of our records for something — some fastest selling thing, and they’d take it away.”
“It was just a bit of a shame! But I don’t begrudge them that — that’s the nature of the music industry, it keeps moving,” the British singer continued.
Despite BTS breaking several records and emerging as a global phenomenon, Tomlinson believes that there hasn’t “been anything similar” to the phenomenon of One Direction because they broke the regular boy band style
“I’m sure people are trying, but I think what was really interesting about One Direction [was] pretty much every boy band that had come before us would fit into a quite specific mould,” he added. “There was a way of doing boy bands back in the day — dressing in the same outfits, dancing. We broke free from that mould.”
Tomlinson is currently gearing up to release his next solo album How Did I Get Here?, slated to drop on January 23. The upcoming album explores a difficult time for him and his fellow 1D members, who are trying to cope with the death of Liam Payne, who passed away in October 2024.
