The X Factor and One Direction
Following a suggestion from his mother, on 11 April 2010, Styles auditioned as a solo contestant for the seventh series of the British televised singing competition The X Factor, singing a rendition of Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister”. After Simon Cowell suggested that the track was not right for him, he instead sang a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely”. He advanced to bootcamp but failed to progress further. Four others in his age group who were also eliminated were put together to form a band in July 2010 to compete in the “Groups” category, mentored by Cowell. The group consisting of Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik practised for two weeks; Styles suggested the name One Direction to his bandmates, which they agreed to. They began to gain considerable popularity in the UK, and within the first four weeks of the live shows, were Cowell’s last act in the competition.The group eventually reached the final of The X Factor and finished in third place.
In January 2011, One Direction signed a recording contract with Cowell’s label Syco Records. Their UK number one debut single, “What Makes You Beautiful”, and their debut studio album, Up All Night, were released later that year. The album, which contained three songs co-written by Styles, made One Direction the first British group to have their debut album reach number one in the United States. Their four succeeding studio albums—Take Me Home (2012), Midnight Memories (2013), Four (2014) and Made in the A.M. (2015)—all debuted at number one in the UK. Midnight Memories was the world’s best-selling album of 2013, and its accompanying Where We Are Tour was the highest-grossing tour of 2014 and remains the highest-grossing tour of all time by a vocal group. After the release of Four, One Direction became the only group in the 58-year history of the Billboard 200 albums chart to have their first four albums debut at number one. The albums spawned a string of successful singles, including “Live While We’re Young”, “Little Things”, “Best Song Ever”, “Story of My Life”, “Drag Me Down” and “History”. Styles also co-wrote the song “Just a Little Bit of Your Heart” for Ariana Grande’s 2014 album My Everything.
Not wanting to “exhaust” the fan base, upon Styles’ suggestion, the band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2016, after completing promotional activities related to Made in the A.M. Since their debut, One Direction have sold 70 million records worldwide, including 7.6 million albums and 26 million singles in the US, becoming one of the best-selling boy bands of all time.
The group amassed numerous accolades, including seven Brit Awards, seven American Music Awards, six Billboard Music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards. While Styles has been generally positive about his time in One Direction, he has revealed that the hyper-visibility he experienced while being in the band was not always easy to deal with. Styles attributed his avoidance of social media to past pressure that he should be constantly accessible online. He has spoken about being scared of saying the wrong things in interviews and of fear that not answering questions such as the number of people he slept with would cause journalists to leave the interview annoyed with him. His contracts with One Direction contained “cleanliness clauses” which stated that the group would be “null and void” if he did not obey them[…]. He expressed that he “burst into tears” when he signed a solo contract without these clauses because he felt “free”.