One of the most popular music groups of the decade is the boy band One Direction. In the beginning Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Harry Styles auditioned as solo artists on the seventh season of the X-Factor UK. All five boys made it through to boot camp. However, at the end of boot camp, none of the boys’ names were called to move on in the competition. On Friday July 23, 2010, at 8:22 p.m., as they prepared to leave, Niall, Zayn, Liam, Louis, and Harry were called back in front of the judges. It had been decided by judges Simon Cowell, Nicole Scherzinger, and Louis Walsh that the five boys would form a group and move forward in the competition as a group.  After this, Simon Cowell was assigned as their mentor.

As a group, they finished in third place. Ever since then, One Direction has made it into girls’ lives everywhere around the world, brining excitement whenever they hear their names. Freshman, Caitlin O’Brien, states “I have loved One Direction since I heard What Makes you Beautiful, once I heard their song I searched YouTube videos of One Direction and watched the videos everyday.”  Their first single, “What Makes You Beautiful,” debuted at number one on the UK singles chart in 2011. In the United States, the single became the highest Billboard Hot 100 debuts for a UK act since the Beatles in 1998. The single was a part of their album, Up All Night. Up All Night was number one on iTunes and broke a record when it became number one on the Billboard 200 Albums chart.

One Direction played over 60 shows in the Up All Night tour. About two months later, they revealed another album called Take Me Home. Less than a year later, Take Me Home” was their second number one album, selling 540,000 copies in the UK in the first week. A few months before the Take Me Home tour kicked off in the UK, One Direction sold out Madison Square Garden in under a minute. They performed songs from their new album and a few from their debut album.

Since the end of February, One Direction has performed a total of over 70 shows in the UK, parts of Europe, and the USA. Recently, the boys have traveled to Australia to finish the rest of their Take Me Home tour. Some may say, they lost the X-Factor but won the world.