Harry
Edward Styles, an English singer and songwriter started his musical journey in
2010 when he participated on the British music competition series ‘The X Factor’
as a solo contestant. Following his elimination from the competition, he joined
the boy band ‘One Direction’ which eventually became one of the
best-selling bands.

Styles began his career on April 11, 2010, on his mother’s advice. The singer auditioned for
the seventh series of the British TV singing show ‘The X Factor’ as a solo
contender and sang a rendition of Steve Wonder’s ‘Isn’t She Lovely’. He further
reached to bootcamp but failed to qualify to the “Boys” category at judges’
houses.

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There were
four more boys in his age group including him who also failed to qualify.
However, later in the show, all five boys qualified for the “Groups” category
during the bootcamp stage of competition. The group included Styles, Zayn
Malik, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne.

Between
their practice of two weeks together, Styles advised the name of their band as ‘One
Direction’ and his bandmates agreed to keep it.

This was
followed by the first four weeks of the live shows where they were Cowell’s
last act in the show and this got them fame and popularity in the
United Kingdom. The group also reached the final of the show.

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The band’s
debut single “What Makes You Beautiful” was released in 2011 and within months,
the song grabbed the number one position on the UK Singles Chart. It was followed
by the release of their first studio album “Up All Night” in November 2011. In no
time, One Direction became the first-ever British group to achieve the number one position in the United States, as well.

A
documentary and concert film about the group, titled “One Direction: This Is Us”
was made by Director Morgan Spurlock and was released in 2013. Even the band became
the first team in the history of Billboard 200 albums chart in 58 years to get
their first four albums debut at number one.

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One
Direction, in their career span of approx six years, have sold 70 million
records globally and became one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. The
team won several awards, such as, seven Brit Awards, seven American Music Awards,
six Billboard Music Awards and four MTV Video Music Awards.

However, in
August 2015, the boy band declared that they were going on a hiatus, so each one
of them could follow their individual projects. This news came five months
after member Zayn Malik left the band in March, the same year. Finally, in February
2016, Styles also said goodbye to One Direction’s management company, Modest
Management and united with Jeffrey Azoff’s Full Stop Management along with
talent agency CAA.