I’m of the personal belief that One Direction’s music has never received the recognition that it deserved on any meaningful level. Still, while Styles, Malik, Horan, Tomlinson, and Payne all boast fruitful solo careers that push further and further away from the need, if even the want, for a One Direction reunion, the age of streaming and social media has presented their music with everlasting admiration. The group’s debut Up All Night arrived 10 years ago today in the wake of lead single “What Makes You Beautiful” and altered an entire chapter of pop music history. The space becomes more and more distant in the passing years as these memories span nearly a decade in the past. Every passing November brings with it the lingering recollection of what it was like to hear a brand new One Direction song for the first time - and a new extreme to which you’d go to experience that electric feeling again. Memories flood with the nights when the album would leak days before its release to a frenzied fanbase attempting to hide the evidence from their Twitter timelines whenever one of the five members would come online. For fans, this time of year in particular recalls the five-year cycle of the band’s album releases. The further we move past the days of One Direction as a fully functioning unit of performers, the more it all begins to blur together like something out of a fever dream - it all went by so fast. The band began their now-indefinite hiatus after a final performance together in 2015, which means they’ve officially been broken up for longer than they were together. And even beyond that, it was the deep cuts and should-have-been singles that still spark conversation long after the prime of One Direction. It was the five albums shared in as many years - four of which topped the Billboard 200 - and the six singles that landed in the top 10 of the Hot 100. Of course, a huge part of the story of One Direction was the deafening screams of fans wherever they went and the social frenzy of having five boyband heartthrobs back in the pop culture conversation for the first time in a long time. They didn’t dance, the concept of coordinated or matching outfits didn’t last past the first tour, and they were the first to wield the passion of fandom paired with the power of social media to achieve ongoing international success. While important stepping stones and key parts of their stories, the feats pale in comparison to literally everything that came after.ĭuring their almost six official years together, 1D completely redefined the notion of a boyband. But at this point, mentioning their stint on the show feels as necessary as tracing Justin Bieber’s success back to his time on YouTube or Ariana Grande’s on Nickelodeon. Better together, at least at the time, the five-piece came in third place in the singing competition. Simon Cowell pulled One Direction together in 2010 after Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne had each auditioned as solo artists on The X Factor UK.
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