Throwback Thursday ‘One Thing’ by One Direction (2012)

"One Thing" entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart at #90 in March of 2012!

Can you believe this song is ten years old?

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"One Thing" was the second single off of One Direction's debut album, Up All Night, in the US.

One Direction is a British/Irish pop vocal group made up of members Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, and Louis Tomlinson. They all auditioned as solo acts on X Factor and were later put together by Simon Cowell.

"One Thing" was criticized for sounding a lot like One Direction's previous song "What Makes You Beautiful" and Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way".

According to Wikipedia, "Due to strong digital downloads from its parent album, 'One Thing' debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 90 on 21 March 2012, and had sold 300,000 copies in the US by 21 May 2012.^[9][25] After being serviced to radio formats on 22 May 2012,^[10] "One Thing" peaked at number 39 for the week ending 20 June 2012.^[26][27] On 21 September 2012, 'One Thing' was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),^[28] and as of November 2013, the song had sold 1,486,000 copies in the US."

I was surprised to learn that "One Thing" only peaked at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #15 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart. I thought it was much higher!

The music video was filmed all over London. There isn't much of a plot, just the guys singing and hanging out around London. As of December 2019, the music video had more than 630 million YouTube views.

I gotta admit, the music video just makes me smile. How is this song only ten years old and yet the guys look like babies?!

Zayn Malik left the group in 2015. Then, One Direction announced a 'hiatus' in 2016. The group is still on that 'hiatus'.

However, all five members have gone on to have varying degrees of success as solo artists.