The 10-year anniversary celebrations for One Direction were a lightning rod for the pop band’s sales and streams in the U.K., new data reveals.
According to data published by the Official Charts Company, almost 25 million streams of the group’s songs were generated in the days leading to and following the July 23 anniversary date.
As previously reported, three of their catalog albums — Take Me Home, Made in the A.M. and Four — last week returned to the Official U.K. Albums Chart Top 40.
Over the past two weeks, 1D’s debut album Up All Night saw the biggest gains (135% uplift in chart sales), while their sophomore set Take Me Home was their most streamed through the last fortnight with a 99% boost in total consumption.
The boy band’s third LP Midnight Memories has been their most downloaded over the period, generating a 106% spike, while Four had the greatest uptick in CD sales and was up by 92% across all formats.
The lads’ fifth and final album Made in the A.M., recorded in 2015 after the departure of Zayn Malik, posted a 98% lift.
Across 1D singles, the greatest beneficiary of the anniversary celebrations was “What Makes You Beautiful,” with 1.4 million streams, while “History” was third overall but stands out as the most downloaded One Direction song during the two weeks.
On July 23, One Direction celebrated its 10th year as a band, with each member of the group’s most recent lineup — Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson — posting about the special moment in addition to the group’s main Twitter account coming out of a two-year hiatus to tweet.
The British and Irish group was formed via the seventh season of the U.K. The X Factor.
