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About this Song
One Direction, the English-Irish pop boy band, formed in London in 2010 after each of its members—Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson—initially auditioned as solo artists for the British singing competition show *The X Factor*. Guest judge Nicole Scherzinger played a significant role in grouping the individual performers, a fact later confirmed by unseen footage from the show in 2022, which showed Horan being chosen first, followed by Styles, Tomlinson, Payne, and Malik. Harry Styles himself conceived the band's name, One Direction, often abbreviated to 1D. After finishing third in the seventh series of *The X Factor* in 2010, Simon Cowell signed the group to a reported £2 million record deal with Syco Records, while Columbia Records handled their North American releases.
