One Direction's solo successes and failures

After the disbanding of One Direction near the end of 2015, every ex-member decided to go out and attempt to launch their own solo careers. Despite each member having their own large and dedicated fanbase, each one received extremely varying levels of success, to degrees often considered inconsistent with their levels of fame while in the group. While varying factors play into this discrepancy, the success and failure of each ex-Directioner seems to mostly fall around the vision put into their work and album roll-outs.

Success: Harry Styles

Harry Styles becoming the biggest solo success story of One Direction comes as little surprise to most followers of the band, but just how he got there remains a shocker. Both of his albums, Harry Styles and Fine Line, draw on rock influences to make songs that sounds closer to David Bowie than to Justin Bieber. Despite this, his fervent fanbase and consistent vision have propelled him to the stratosphere. Even after the second and third singles, "Two Ghosts" and "Kiwi", relatively disappointed commercially, he stayed in his lane and kept making the music he wanted to make, and the fans followed as a result. Redirecting himself after this disappointment may have attained him a flash in the pan of more commercial success, but where he gave that up, he got a dedicated base of fans. It's not the most commercial venture and it hasn't generated overly consistent success in his singles, but it's made him an album and ticket selling force to be reckoned with, as well as a critical darling.

Failure: Liam Payne

Liam Payne released his 2017 single "Strip That Down" to massive commercial success, reaching the top 10 in the US and the top 3 in the UK. However, after the relative disappointments of follow-up singles "Get Low" with Zedd and "Bedroom Floor", his album saw years of delays as Capitol Records desperately tried to score him a hit, which mostly failed, other than the moderate global success of "For You" with Rita Ora. His debut album "LP1" was finally dropped two and a half years after "Strip That Down", and with all the hype dissipated, it was a massive commercial failure, failing to even crack the top 100 in the US, and sputtering out at 17 in the UK. "LP1" had 7 prerelease songs tacked onto the end, as well as single "Stack It Up" with A Boogie wit da Hoodie as the first track. With over half of the tracks released before the album, the hype was very muted, especially considering how sonically all over the place they were and how minimal most off their successes were. He tried to make an album for everyone, dipping into pop, r&b, EDM, trap, Latin, and more genres, but instead, he made an album for no one. It also doesn't help that the album was near-universally panned, and basically irredeemable garbage. But even if each new song ended up being good, it wasn't likely going to break out after the long series of delays.

Tossup: Zayn

Of all the post-One Direction careers, Zayn's has perhaps been the most tumultuous. He got immediate success with his debut solo single "Pillowtalk", which was in part aided by his early departure of One Direction and thus being the first solo single released. The success of "Pillowtalk" also made his debut album, Mind of Mine, highly successful. Taylor Swift duet for Fifty Shades Darker, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" was a worldwide smash, and Sia duet "Dusk Till Dawn" smashed internationally, though didn't resonate stateside. However, the disappointment of lead single ("Let Me") for his second album (Icarus Falls) left his team in disarray and scrambling for a hit. The album ended up being preceded by a whopping 9 prerelease singles, and the album itself was an insane 27 songs. The album was generally positively received by critics, but throwing songs into the world and hoping one stuck was not an effective promo strategy, and a lack of promotional push on Zayn's part due to his increasing struggles with anxiety has seemingly left Zayn's career in the dust. Icarus Falls only managed to debut at 61 in the US and 77 in the UK, and he quickly fell off the charts and out of the public eye from there.

Success: Niall Horan

Niall Horan's career may not have reached the resounding peaks of Zayn's or even Liam's, but unlike Zayn he seems to be scoring a hit from his second album with "Nice To Meet Ya" making some waves, and unlike Liam he had a successful debut album in Flicker. His career probably will not reach the current peak of Harry Styles or the singles peak of his aforementioned contemporaries if he keeps his current style of music. However, consider his solid hits in "This Town", "Slow Hands", and "Too Much to Ask" as well as his current success, and he seems to have a bright future ahead of him as a low-key singer-songwriter. He is no global superstar, but consistent mid-level hits and notoriety is a huge step above Zayn and Liam's most recent commercial disasters.

Failure: Louis Tomlinson

It may be a bit early to call the career of Louis Tomlinson a "failure" considering his debut album Walls will not be out until January 31, 2020, however, none of the 4 singles ("Two Of Us", "Kill My Mind", "We Made It", and "Don't Let It Break Your Heart") have charted in the US, and only the former made a brief appearance on the UK charts. The relative commercial disappointment of his first three singles in the US ("Just Hold On", "Back to You", and "Miss You") as well as the latter's disappointment worldwide led him to have an empty 2018, which killed any momentum he may have had. While there is still a chance for either Walls the album or a single from it to break out, as of right now, Louis's career seems to be the most resounding failure of the bunch. It's behind both High Road by Kesha and TREAT MYSELF by Meghan Trainor on the iTunes pre-order charts, two artists widely considered to be well past their commercial prime, which really does not bode well for a surprise last-second turnaround.

Takeaways

The biggest successes in this bunch, Harry Styles and Niall Horan, followed a similar formula: debut early, find a niche, and stick to it. Zayn had the biggest peak thanks to his early debut, but he sputtered off course from his niche. Liam also had a strong debut, but he never even managed to find his niche. Louis seems to have a solid niche, but he took too long to capitalize on it and seems mostly forgotten now. It may have come as a surprise back in 2015 that Niall Horan would go on to become one of the biggest success stories of the bunch, but it just goes to show how important an efficient album roll-out is in commercial viability.