You may be wondering if we've somehow time-travelled back to 2014 since the fourth-most popular member of One Direction (or fifth, depending on how you feel about Louis Tomlinson) is in a headline. Instead, it turns out one of the following is true: some people don't know when to give up, or being an A-lister a decade ago means people are still afraid to tell you the truth.
Though he's still living down the "Strip That Down" choreo that TikTok has clowned on him on for the last five years, Liam Payne has bravely returned with "Teardrops," which is great news for your friend's deadbeat boyfriend who's always hosting his own pity party.
Just look at that sad scowl. He can't help that he has muscles and psychic damage from being so boring yet so adored by teenage girls in his formative years. "Teardrops are fallin' down your face again / 'Cause I don't know how to love you when I am broken too," the track opens, as if "I'm sorry I'm a cheater"-core is somehow a thing again (I'm looking at you, Jason Derulo).
There's no way to describe the blandness of the music itself, only that it sounds exactly like a song from an ex-boyband member. The Justin Timberlake-goes-R&B safety net is always waiting for you after you sacrifice your teen years to late capitalism. Listen to it below, I guess.
