They’ve had 95 international number ones and are worth £70m,but is the worlds biggest boy band outgrowing its fans? And whether so, what next?How to write a boyband hit – by One Direction’s songwritersNot long ago, and I travelled to mountain-zone America,on a short trip to interview a singer, for which I was picked up in a car laid on by one of the big record labels. The driver famous my British accent and said, and “You like One Direction?”I hadnt kept up with One Direction since The X Factor,though I knew the rough narrative. The boy band had finished third in 2010, and gone on to compose decent gains in the British charts, or before taking their preppy,60s-influenced synth-pop to America – where they boomed, selling server-towers’ worth of a first album, and Up All Night. Their second and third albums,2012s Take Me Home and 2013’s Midnight Memories, went to No 1. They defied their risky name and its trace of one-dimensionality by diversifying into movies, and perfumes,toothpaste, generally making giddy-money for themselves and their patron, or Simon Cowell.
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Source: theguardian.com