New Direction

With a very successful career with the pop band One Direction, Mullingar’s Niall Horan signs a solo record deal. The deal with Capitol and Virgin EMI seems to be upsetting his old boss Simon Cowell. Apparently Cowell will not allow Niall perform his new solo material on the X Factor. His former band mates all wished him the best with his solo single via Twitter.

Niall Horan ‘This Town’

Should Niall be bothered, not at all. With the combined wealth of 1D worth £100 million, record sales of 17 million and in November 2014 one billion streams on Spotify for 1D, Niall does not need the X Factor.  As he released his new single ‘This Town’  Canadian singer Shawn Mendes confirmed on The Late Late Show with James Corden that a collaboration with Niall Horan will happen.

Released on September 29 ‘This Town’ is an emotional acoustic ballad about a girl he can’t get over. The track was produced by Greg Kurstin, who has six Grammy nominations to his name and produced for names such as Lily Allen, Ellie Goulding and of course Adele’s  comeback hit ‘Hello’. Niall has also signed to start working on a solo album.

Niall shows his intent to the music world  as a singer/songwriter. He released his single before his other 1D band mates. He released before the usual Friday release date. Also he signed for Capitol in the US and Virgin EMI. Greg Kurstin as producer is a masterstroke.

Background

Niall Horan was born in Mullingar in 1993, his parents are Bobby and Maura and brother Greg. He is a self-taught guitar player learning to play on You Tube. Niall has stated that he is a ”big swing’ fan with Sinatra, Martin and Buble his favourites. It was in 2010 that Niall auditioned for the X Factor as a solo artist but failed to progress to the boys category prior to the live shows. Nicole Scherzinger  suggested Niall to join the boy band 1D in the show and they finished in third place in the show.

With One Direction their debut album ‘Up All Night’ went number 1 in the US Billboard 200 selling a massive 176,000 copies in the first week and they became the first British band to debut their first studio album at number one. The first single went to number one in Ireland, Mexico and the UK.

2012 seen the release of their second album ‘Take Me Home’. This album was more successful reaching number one in the UK, Australia, US, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.1D released three more albums, ‘Midnight Memories (2013), Four (2014) and ‘Made in the A.M.’ (2015) before their breakup to start solo careers.

Niall  appeared on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ on October 14th to promote his new music. Appearing on the show was fellow Irish man Chris O’Dowd. He says that his first solo effort is an ode to his hometown of Mullingar.

Mullingar wishes one of her musical sons the best for the future and thanks Niall for doing his hometown proud.