Looks like One Direction have gone in separate directions.
Every massive boyband has a legend to come out of it; there was Justin Timberlake from *NSYNC, Robbie Williams from Take That and Ronan Keating from Boyzone. Subsequently, every boyband also sees other musicians to come out of it, but to a lesser degrees of success, these would include: Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, JC Chasez from *NSYNC and Nick Lachey from 98 Degrees. And then, there are the rest of them; those who don’t really do well… Like, at all.
One Direction was – at one point – the biggest band in the whole world. But now that we’re almost a decade past their peak, the boys have found success on their own. So now that they’ve all put out solo albums (as Loius released his debut album last week), we can rank them against each other to see who outdid who. Allow us to present to you; Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik ranked, in the number of albums sold in their first week, in the U.S.
If you’re a big fan of One Direction, we had a good ol’ yarn about Liam Payne’s debut album on this episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
Harry Styles – ‘Harry Styles’ – 230k Units Sold
No surprises here. Harry Styles is the icon to come out of One Direction. Absolutely annihilating expectations with his debut album, this star has found more success post-1D than before. The critical and commercial acclaim of ‘Sign of the Times’ has even been beaten by singles on his sophomore effort like ‘Watermelon Sugar’ and ‘Adore You’.
Zayn Malik – ‘Mind of Mine’ – 157k Units Sold
Zayn’s departure of One Direction was bold at the time. It felt as if the R&B singer was racing to be the first solo performer from the band, to ride the wave of hype whilst showing more personality. And it kind of worked. ‘PILLOWTALK’ is one of the most successful singles, if not the most known single from an ex-1D member. Further, he’s seen other chart successes like ‘Dusk Til Dawn’ and ‘Trampoline’.
Niall Horan – ‘Flicker’ – 152k Units Sold
Okay, now we’re starting to enter the mid-tier of One Direction stars. Since Zayn went for R&B, Harry went for Alternative Rock, Liam went for Dance R&B and Louis went for EDM, it allowed Naill to carve out his own path in singer-songwriter pop. Channelling Ed Sheeran on his debut single ‘This Town’ and following it up with the infectious bop, ‘Slow Hands’, this Irish-singer’s debut was inoffensive and pleasant.
Louis Tomlinson – ‘Walls’ – 39k Units Sold
So, the One Direction hype has very much slowed down, with some kids being vocal about not knowing who they are. Thus, the timing for this debut record wasn’t exactly the greatest. Regardless, he didn’t perform the worst out of the boys.
Liam Payne – ‘LP1’ – 9.5k Units Sold
Poor Liam. After pumping out radio-friendly hits like ‘Strip That Down’ and ‘Stack It Up’, things were looking promising for the ex-1D star. But, as controversy surrounded his song ‘Both Ways’ for being “biphobic”, the press surrounding the album launch wasn’t exactly positive. Hence, selling under 10k units in its first week, and debuting at #111 on the Billboard 200. Yikes.
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