One Direction

One Direction—often shortened to 1D—are an English-Irish boy band formed in London in 2010. The group comprised Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, the latter departing the group in March 2015. After finishing third in the seventh series of the British singing competition The X Factor in 2010 the band signed with Simon Cowell's Syco Records label. Their debut album, Up All Night, came out the following year.

From the very beginning, social media and canny marketing have spun gold for the band. The story of their X Factor experience came out not long before the debut album and topped the Sunday Times Bestseller list. The string of best selling product continued apace, with One Direction's five albums topping charts in most major markets, not to mention a slew of hit singles along the way.After the release of Four (2014), One Direction became the first band in the US Billboard 200 chart history to have their first four albums debut at number one. 

One Direction hit the pause button on their group career in 2016. Since then, all members have pusued solo projects, most notably Harry Styles.