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By July 2020, One Direction’s five members had moved from a shared pop career to separate paths in music, acting, television and golf management. The group formed in 2010 after its members auditioned individually for The X Factor; Zayn Malik left in 2015, and the remaining four later went on indefinite hiatus. This is a snapshot of where each member stood in the band’s tenth-anniversary year—not a description of their activities today.
How One Direction formed—and changed
Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson auditioned separately for The X Factor in 2010 before being brought together as a group. The Los Angeles Times dates the formation to July 23, 2010, the anniversary later marked by the band and its members. The Los Angeles Times’ anniversary report records the milestone.
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Malik left in March 2015. In its official statement, One Direction said the other four would continue as a quartet and looked forward to their tour and fifth album. The group’s March 25, 2015 statement describes the plan at the time. The remaining members later entered an indefinite hiatus; that is not the same as an officially announced permanent breakup. By July 2020, the members were pursuing separate careers, as The Independent’s July 24, 2020 retrospective put it.
What each member was doing by July 2020
The snapshots below reflect the reporting available in the group’s anniversary year. They compare solo music, documented work beyond recording and participation in the tenth-anniversary messages, without ranking the members’ success.
#1 Best Overall
Harry Styles
Styles had released his self-titled debut album in 2017 and Fine Line in 2019. His screen work included an acting debut in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. In July 2020, he was among the four members who shared an anniversary message. The Independent covers his music and acting in its retrospective.
Zayn Malik
After leaving One Direction in 2015, Malik pursued a solo R&B direction. By the 2020 retrospective, his solo albums included Mind of Mine and Icarus Falls. The Los Angeles Times reported that Malik had not commented on the tenth-anniversary milestone by the time its July 23 article was published; it would be inaccurate to include him among the four members who posted anniversary messages.
Rank #2
Niall Horan
The Independent characterized Horan’s solo music as folk-influenced and reported that he had co-founded a golf management company, adding a business role beyond recording. Horan shared an anniversary message in July 2020.
Liam Payne
Payne released solo singles including “Strip That Down” and “For You,” followed by the album LP1 in late 2019. The Independent’s retrospective covers those releases. Payne also shared an anniversary message in 2020.
Rank #3
- ONE DIRECTION FOUR
Louis Tomlinson
Tomlinson’s post-band solo path moved toward soft rock, according to The Independent, and he had also judged The X Factor. He was among the members who posted a tenth-anniversary message.
What the tenth anniversary looked like
July 23, 2020 marked ten years since One Direction’s formation. Styles, Horan, Payne and Tomlinson shared messages reflecting on the milestone, while the band’s official account released a retrospective video, according to the Los Angeles Times. Styles wrote on Instagram: “I’ve been struggling to put into words how grateful I am for everything that’s happened over the last ten years,” the newspaper reported. Malik had not commented by the time that report was published.
Rank #4
- ONE DIRECTION MIDNIGHT MEMORIES
The band’s chart legacy is separate from the solo snapshots
The Official Charts Company records that during One Direction’s 2010–2015 tenure, the group had six Number 1s and 23 Top 50 hits on the Official Irish Singles Chart, and all five of its albums topped the Official Irish Albums Chart. These are group-era Irish chart results, not measures of the members’ individual careers in 2020. See the Official Charts Company’s One Direction chart page.
A separate Official Charts Company retrospective published in 2022 provides later UK chart and streaming context for the members’ solo hits and reports that Horan’s 2020 album Heartbreak Weather became his first UK Number 1 album. Because that retrospective postdates the anniversary year, its cumulative solo figures should not be read as 2020 totals. The 2022 Official Charts Company retrospective gives that later context.
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- ONE DIRECTION TAKE ME HOME
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