How did NIALL HORAN beat the band?
He wasn’t the heart throb, he didn’t have the best voice, yet in the aftermath of 1D’s split, the Mullingar man may overtake all the others in terms of solo success. So...
ON JANUARY 17, 2010, 16-year-old Niall Horan threw out an innocuous thought into the Twitterverse from his family home in Mullingar: ‘applied for xfactor, hope it all wrks out’ (sic). What immediately followed the tweet were an uneventful few weeks, a high point being an appearance at Mullingar Shamrock’s Stars In Your Eyes fundraiser.
That July, Niall auditioned for the reality show alongside tens of thousands of other hopefuls in Croke Park. Save for the Bieber-inspired shock of blonde hair, he was unremarkable in his appearance. Still, it was to become the luckiest, most fateful moment of his life. And absolutely no one could have predicted what happened next.
What he lacked in vocal nous in the audition, Niall more than made up for in selfbelief: ‘I want to be like Beyonce or Justin Bieber. I want to sell out albums and work with some of the best artists in the world,’ he said to the camera crew.
Judge Simon Cowell soon cut him down to size: ‘You’re unprepared, you came with the wrong song, you’re not as good as you thought you were... but I still like you.’
Fast forward to the present day. The singer, now 24, is reported to be worth €72 million. And after the seismic and gamechanging success of his band, One Direction, Niall has just released his debut solo album, Flicker.
The album sees Niall leave behind the sugary, bombastic notes of his former boyband career. Rather, it has been hailed for its intimate acoustic ballads and nod to Americana-folk. And proving that solo stardom has done nothing to quell Niall’s playful sense of humour, he’s even managed to shoehorn a risky lyric or two in there, too. On Slow Hands, one line likens his lover’s touch to ‘sweat dripping down our dirty laundry’.
Of the lyric, Niall told the LA Times: ‘I was with some friends of mine and we were just kind of shouting out lyrics. And when we shouted that one — I think it was me who spat it out — the rest of the people in the room didn’t go, “Echhh.” They weren’t horrified by it.’
That Flicker would top the Irish charts was a safe enough bet; debuting at No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US is quite another matter entirely. Niall now joins former bandmates Harry Styles and Zayn Malik in having a solo album reach the top of the US charts; the first band to do so since the Beatles.
As One Direction dissolved — or went ‘on hiatus’, whichever you prefer — the steeplechase was on for each respective member to stake their ground as solo artists.
It’s a careworn cycle in the life of every boyband: one member tires of the high life, and wants to be seen as a ‘serious musician’ — like Robbie Williams and Brian McFadden before him, it was Zayn Malik who turned out to be the gun-shy one in One Direction.
The effortlessly charming Harry Styles, with an endless parade of high-profile flings and a coterie of cool celebrity pals, was always mooted for notable success. Likewise, Zayn is said to have recorded solo music even before he had officially
It’s been hailed for its intimate acoustic ballads
left One Direction.
It was hard to escape the niggling sentiment that the remaining three band members — Niall, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne — were somehow lagging behind. In fact, one newspaper even referred to them as ‘second-tier members’.
The suspicion was confirmed when Louis Tomlinson’s debut single Back To You stalled at No.8 in the UK charts, 11 in the Irish charts and 40 in the Billboard Hot 100. His forthcoming album, he says, will take inspiration from the Arctic Monkeys and Oasis.
Liam, meanwhile, reached No.10 in the US with his first solo single, Strip That Down. The song’s lyrics hint at uneasy memories of his time in a boyband: ‘You know I used to be in 1D / People want me for one thing,’ Payne sings, ‘I’m not changing the way that I used to be / I just wanna have fun and get rowdy.’
Niall, meanwhile, is known for being the nicest guy in pop, and appears to remain so. In fact, of all the One Directioners, he is probably the one member that has shape-shifted the least since they parted ways.
The upbeat Niall is adored by legions of fans, certainly, but all things told, he was not expected to travel in One Direction’s heady orbit with his own solo career.
He gathered plenty of favour, both at home and abroad, when he announced that he would bring Irish acts like Picture This, Gavin James and Wild Nothing on his world tour as support acts.
‘I wanted to make it as Irish as possible and show off the incredible music coming out of our lovely little country,’ he tweeted.
When it comes to Brand Horan, bigging up his fellow countrymen is very much on point.
In fact, Niall is so nice that he is even reluctant to deem his one-time compadres as competitors.
‘If we were making the same kind of music, then fair enough — you could start a rivalry,’ he has said. ‘Me and Liam, we’re currently up there in the charts. But we have completely different sounds.’
Gunning for glory as solo artists is an interesting turn of events for the five-piece, who were put together as a manufactured group by Cowell.
‘Girls in the US are obsessed with Niall’
It’s almost hard to believe now with the benefit of hindsight, but One Direction’s five members failed to make it through the rounds as solo performers.
‘I met them as solo artists to begin with,’ Cowell told CNN. ‘Each of them individually had very good auditions. We had high hopes for two or three of them in particular, and then it all kind of fell apart at one of the latter stages. Interestingly, when they left, I had a bad feeling that maybe we shouldn’t have lost them and maybe there was something else we should do with them. And this is when the idea came about that we should see if they could work as a group. We invited these five guys back. They were the only five we cared about.
‘The minute they stood there for the first time together — it was a weird feeling. They just looked like a group at that point.’
It’s long been said that Niall had been earmarked by Cowell as his secret weapon to crack America. With his blonde hair and blue eyes, he certainly had what it took to snag the attentions of the tweens. His unassuming, boy-next-door persona — the yin to Zayn’s brooding, darkeyed yang — was a lucky bonus.
In 2012, a source close to the band told a magazine: ‘All the boys are popular, but the girls in the US seem to be absolutely obsessed with Niall.
‘They love the fact he’s Irish and looks like the perfect all-American boy. He gets swamped with girls wherever he goes.’
Perhaps mindful of his ever-faithful fanbase, Niall has also kept his personal life largely from public view.
Louis Tomlinson was never shy about declaring his romance for Eleanor Calder, some might say to his detriment: last year a kerfuffle broke out in Los Angeles airport with a fan after Calder was allegedly attacked.
Other One Directioners have reported that their respective love interests have endured abuse and death threats from over-zealous fans on Twitter.
Niall seems to have hedged his bets in this regard. Despite a ceaseless stream of reports about flings and dalliances with various models, influencers and actresses, he is the only One Direction member thought to be single.
Still, it’s a truth universally
acknowledged that Niall is exceptionally considerate to his fans. Recently, fans camped outside London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire ahead of his gig, and Horan’s security brought breakfast to them.
Says Alan Swan, head of music at 2FM: ‘There’s a few reasons that Niall has cut through so quickly,’ he notes. ‘His work ethic is incredible. He wisely did his Flicker sessions in small venues first, honing his sound, touring the world and is then moving on to Arena’s next year.
‘As a marketing tool you can’t beat the old-fashioned hard graft. It’s how U2 broke America, and it’s how Niall is breaking worldwide.
‘The other thing about Niall is he is so personable and remembers everybody’s name even if he hasn’t spoken to you in ages.
‘He’s no diva and crews, promoters and stations like 2FM love to work with him.’
However, niceness only gets you so far in the business: ultimately, the album needs to pass muster, too.
‘At the end of the day you need hit songs and you need variety,’ notes Swan. ‘Niall and his team have been very clever getting him to work with some outstanding talent.
‘Firstly positioning himself with the acoustic, folky This Town which he co-wrote with Jamie Scott, who co-wrote Justin Bieber’s Cold Water. It gave him instant post-One Direction credibility.
‘And then he mixed it up with Slow Hands, co-written with Irish songwriter Ruth Anne Cunningham.
‘His latest single Too Much To Ask is produced by Greg Kurstin, the guy who co-wrote and produced Adele’s Hello. He’s surrounding himself with the best of the best.’
Where the other members of One Direction have branched out into electronic dance music and hip-hop, Niall has relaunched himself as a romantic acoustic troubadour.
Whether by accident or design, it’s something of a career masterstroke. Niall has established a pleasing guitar sound, with the help of One Direction collaborator Julian Binetta, pitched somewhere between Fleetwood Mac, Coldplay and the Eagles.
Niall was often seen strumming a guitar during his days in the band, putting many in mind of Ed Sheeran, who, incidentally co-wrote several 1D songs. And as new directions go, Ed territory is as smart a place to go as any.
The change of pace — playing more intimate spaces over huge arenas — appears to suit Niall. It’s a curious return to the sort of venue size he was used to before that fateful trip to the X Factor auditions in Croke Park, and Niall wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘Playing for, like, 500 people. What more do you want?’ he asked Billboard magazine in May. ‘I’ve had some good moments with screaming teenagers, but I like when the room is completely quiet. It’s a different kind of respect. People are actually listening.’
‘His work ethic is incredible’