#although I think all sorts of other htings could have been going on as well

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

I fundamentally disagree about the value of Daisy and Liam as sources. Their would both have got their information from Louis directly. It might have been outdated by the time it was conveyed, but it still is an indication that it’s the label causing the delay. The other possibility of course is that he did not have a date and he was using the fandom to exert pressure on the label. The implications of that are the same though. Louis’s tweets about touring could fit either of those scenarios too.

So there are a lot of assumptions in here and I disagree with almost all of them (and have a different perspective on most other things you are saying).

Part of the problem is that it’s very difficult to comment without specific examples of what Daisy and Liam said (if it even was Daisy - the original anon seeme unsure).  There’s a real tendancy to jump straight to certainty from phrases that people use in very general ways (for example the way people took Louis responding to a question about this month by saying ‘next month’ as a statement with any degree of certainty). So the first question is how definite were their statements (I’ve definitely never read anything that I read as being an indication that Louis had a definite release date).

Second, I think it’s a huge assumption to think that Liam got information directly from Louis and it’s not one that I share.

But more importantly - I just don’t understand what you think the options are.  You state that the label was responsible for the delay as if that’s a binary quality, which seems like nonsense to me. 

Here’s one possibility that is fully compatible with what we know: Louis’ goal was for a third quarter album release.  In order, to execute that plan there was a deadline in May or June when the album/single had to be finished/signed off/substantially finished.  This didn’t happen and since the label wasn’t prepared to release in fourth quarter the album got substantially delayed. 

Now there’s actually a lot of variables in this scenario where the label could be more or less involved.  Since there’s reason to believe that there was conflict between Louis and the label over sound in the end of 2017 - there’s a question of who was happy with the album and who wasn’t when (there are similar questions about his schedule).  

Of course a label is going to be involved in any album delay. The fact that you state that the label is involved as if it’s some kind of a trump card rather than the way the music business works is so confusing to me.

One of the basic assumptions of your set of options is that the album was finished at the point that Daisy or Liam were talking and there’s no reason to think that’s true.