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One Direction, abbreviated as 1D, is an English-Irish music boy band that formed in London, England in 2010. Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson make up the band; previous member Zayn Malik left the group in March 2015. After creating and placing third in the seventh series of the British TV singing competition The X Factor in 2010, the trio signed with Simon Cowell’s record company Syco Records.

One Direction’s five albums, Up All Night (2011), Take Me Home (2012), Midnight Memories (2013), Four (2014), and Made in the A.M. (2015), topped charts in most major markets and produced hit singles such as “What Makes You Beautiful” (their first number one on the UK Singles Chart and the highest debut for a British act on the US Billboard Hot 100), and “What Makes You Beautiful” (their first number one on the UK Singles Chart and the highest debut for a One Direction became the first band in Billboard 200 history to have their first four albums debut at number one after the release of Four. Midnight Memories, their third album, was the best-selling record in the world in 2013.

One Direction, who were seen as adolescent idols, were frequently subjected to fan frenzy. They went on four global tours, two of which were entirely stadium-based. The band’s Where We Are Tour, which was in support of Midnight Memories, was the highest-grossing concert tour of 2014, the highest-grossing tour by a vocal group in history, and the 15th highest-grossing concert tour of all time, with $290.2 million in revenue (unadjusted for inflation). In January 2016, the band went on hiatus, enabling its members to pursue other projects.

The band has sold 70 million albums globally as of 2020, making them one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. Seven Brit Honors, four MTV Video Music Awards, six Billboard Music Awards, seven American Music Awards (including Artist of the Year in 2014 and 2015), and 28 Teen Choice Awards are among the band’s over 200 awards.

According to Forbes, they made an estimated $75 million in 2013, making them the second highest-paid star under 30. The group was named the Global Recording Artist of the Year by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry for being the world’s best-selling artist in 2013. Billboard awarded the band “Artist of the Year” in 2014. They were named fourth highest-earning celebrities in the world by Forbes in 2015, then second in 2016.

Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson auditioned for the seventh series of the British television singing competition The X Factor as individual applicants in 2010. They all failed to advance in the “Boys” category during the bootcamp round of the competition, but were instead grouped together to create a five-piece boy band, allowing them to compete in the “Groups” category. A guest judge, Nicole Scherzinger, and Simon Cowell have both claimed credit for the formation of the band. “It took him 10 minutes to bring them together as a group,” Cowell remarked in 2013.

Following that, the group met for two weeks to get to know one another and rehearse. One Direction was named by Harry Styles. One Direction performed an acoustic rendition of “Torn” as their qualifying song at “judges’ houses” and their debut song as a group. Their performance persuaded Cowell that they “were confident, fun, like a group of pals, and sort of brave as well,” as he subsequently stated. They were his final act in the competition inside the first four weeks of the live performances. The band rapidly became well-known in the United Kingdom.

One Direction came in third place in the competition, and their song “Forever Young,” which would have been released if they had won The X Factor, was leaked onto the internet shortly after the final. Shortly later, it was revealed that Cowell had signed One Direction to a rumoured £2 million record deal with Syco Records. They traveled to Los Angeles in January 2011 to begin recording their debut album with RedOne, a record producer. One Direction: Forever Young (Our Official X Factor Story), a book licensed by One Direction, was released by HarperCollins in February 2011 and went on to top The Sunday Times Best Seller list.

In the same month, the boy band and other X Factor competitors took part in the X Factor Live Tour. The band played in front of 500,000 people across the United Kingdom during the tour. The band continued to work on their debut album after the tour ended in April 2011. One Direction worked with producers Carl Falk, Savan Kotecha, Steve Mac, and Rami Yacoub, among others, on the album, which was recorded in Stockholm, London, and Los Angeles.

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