A Whole Lot of History

Who is Harry Styles and how did two simple yeses commence his road to stardom?

Early Life

Before he was the Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, model, and actor, Harry Styles was living a simple life in Holmes Chapel located in Cheshire, England. Here, he lived with his mother Anne, and his sister Gemma. During this time, Harry attended Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School and worked part-time at W. Mandeville Bakery after school and on the weekends. He was also in a band with three of his classmates, naming themselves "White Eskimo." The band would perform for their school which gave them practice to later on compete in a local battle of the bands where they took first place with Harry as their lead singer. Eventually he left the band in order to pursue his dream and auditioned for the X Factor.

X Factor Days

When he was just 16, Harry was finally old enough to audition for X Factor in 2010 where he sang "Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder. When the time came around for the judges to vote, Louis Walsh was the first to give his opinion on Harry Styles. He concluded that Harry was too young and didn't have enough experience or confidence yet, voting no. Meanwhile Nicole Scherzinger disagreed and said she thought Harry had a beautiful voice for being just 16 years old. Simon Cowell also stuck up for Harry and voiced that he thinks Harry could be very good after some vocal coaching. Both Nicole and Simon voted yes, moving Harry up to the next round. Sadly, he was eliminated in the "Bootcamp" stage, along with four other boys around his age. At the last minute, Simon Cowell made a spontaneous decision to put all five boys in a group together which qualified them for the "Groups" category of the competition. Their group consisted of Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, and Liam Payne. They gained so much popularity in the UK, that they made it to the end of the competition and finished in third place. It was in 2010 that One Direction was formed. Little did they know that they would become a world-wide phenomenon and the biggest boy band of their time. With that being said, let us all say, "Thank you Anne for sending in Harry's application when he got cold feet!" and "Thank you Simon for putting these five boys in a group together!"

One Direction

Just because the boys didn't win X Factor, doesn't mean they didn't go out and do bigger and better things. In 2011, One Direction signed a recording contract with Simon Cowell's label, Syco Records. Their first album Up All Night, was released and the band quickly became a huge success. One Direction was the first UK band in history to have their debut album reach #1 in the United States. Following Up All Night, Take Me Home (2012), Midnight Memories (2013), and Four (2014) all debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. In total, they released five albums, went on four worldwide tours that sold out in minutes, and in 2013 they released a documentary called "This is Us." Over the course of their career, One Direction sold 70 million records worldwide. Because of these albums, the band accumulated seven Brit Awards, seven American Music Awards, six Billboard Music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards.

Looking back at how successful Harry has become and seeing how much confidence he radiates when performing on stage makes me wonder what Louis Walsh was ever thinking telling a 16-year-old Harry Styles that he wasn't ready, nor did he have enough confidence to have a singing career. Louis is probably kicking himself right now.