Artist News

One Direction become first British group to debut at top of Billboard albums chart

By | Published on Wednesday 21 March 2012

One Direction

Ladies and gentlemen, boys, girls, you at the back, members of The Wanted, and my mum (she’s interested because Harry Styles comes from the village where my family lives), take note, One Direction are the first and, for at least the next week, the only British pop group to ever debut on the Billboard albums chart at number one.

Yes, that puts Simon Cowell’s ‘X-Factor’ creation ahead of Coldplay, Radiohead, Spice Girls, Depeche Mode, Queen, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. That’s right, the Americans reckon One Direction are better than Coldplay, Radiohead, Spice Girls, Depeche Mode, Queen, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Feel free to stand on your chair and dance a little jig, or to be sick in a bag, either are understandable reactions.

Despite members of rival British boy band The Wanted gloating that they were getting more radio play Stateside, and therefore performing better in the Billboard Hot 100 chart (where airplay counts), it seems Sony/Syco’s strategy of having the 1D boys tour every TV studio in America, while pledging allegiance with kids TV network Nickelodeon, including touring with that station’s own boy band creation Big Time Rush, not to mention performing with dogs, all paid off.

Of course it possibly helped that American teen fans nurtured on Disney acts and Justin Bieber were desperately seeking some new pop boys who openly drink, smoke and shag 30-somethings, and 1D happened to arrive at exactly the right time. Anyway, let’s celebrate the chart achievement with some quotes, and then you can go and clean your bag.

Harry Styles: “We simply cannot believe that we are number one in America. We want to thank each and every one of our fans in the US who bought our album and we would also like to thank the American public for being so supportive of us”.

Niall Horan: “As you can imagine, we are over the moon. When we got put together as a group, we couldn’t imagine ourselves coming to America, let alone releasing our album here, so for us to be sitting at the top of the US album charts is unbelievable”.

Simon Cowell: “I couldn’t be happier for One Direction, it is an incredible achievement. They deserve it. They have the best fans in the world”.



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