What Makes You Beautiful” was a commercial smash, topping the charts at number one in various nations. It was certified quadruple platinum within the US and sold 4.8 million copies by June 2016. The song was ranked fourth on the US Billboard Hot 100 and first at the top of the UK Singles Chart. The track was awarded the 2012 Brit Award for British Single of the Year. It was generally praised by music critics of the present, who emphasized its attraction to teenagers and pop sensibility.
The single debuted at the top of the UK Singles Chart after setting the Sony Music Entertainment pre-order record and selling 153,965 copies within the initial week. It also made the top of charts on the Irish as well as Scottish Singles Charts and was ranked in the top 10 on The Australian as well as New Zealand Singles Charts, Flemish Ultratop 50, and Canadian Hot 100 as well as it was also included in the Japan Hot 100.
Production and background
“What Is It That Makes You Beautiful” was written by Savan Kotecha and Carl Falk and was created through Yacoub along with Falk. Falk and Yacoub did the instrumentation. Serban Ghenea did the audio mixing, Tom Coyne did the audio mastering, John Hanes did the mix engineering and mix engineering, and Phil Seaford served as the director of the project. In discussing the concept of the song, Kotecha said:
Background
“What Is It That Makes You Beautiful” was written by Rami Yacoub, Carl Falk, Savan Kotecha, Wes Farrell and Bert Berns and produced by Yacoub and Falk.
The lyrics tell of an attractive girl who doesn’t believe her own eyes, which is why she is unsure when she’s being praised.
“What Makes You Beautiful” is a fast-paced teen power and pop track. The guitar melody that opens the song is compared to the one from Grease’s “Summer Nights”. “What Makes You Beautiful” includes a guitar-driven chorus. Digital Spy’s Robert Copsey likened it to an amalgamation of Pink’s “Raise Your Glass” and McFly’s “All About You”. Also, it has cowbell instruments, and the middle eight comprises the “Oh we’re na, we’re na” hook.
Release
The video premiere took place in the UK on August 19 2011, with a five-day countdown before the premiere. Each day leading up to the video’s premiere, One Direction posted a teaser trailer on YouTube. Each teaser featured footage of the film and behind-the-scenes footage. It also featured an individual group member declaring how many days to go until the film’s official release.
In February 2012, E! News presented a video clip of the music video. However, the video was not officially released in the United States until the next day, on February 11, 2012, when it aired on Nickelodeon.
Popular art and culture
What Makes You Beautiful is considered one of the band’s most popular songs, and fans associate it with the group.
The 1975 played What Makes You Beautiful during their BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge performance in 2013.
The Piano Guys covered What Makes You Beautiful in the year 2012. Their YouTube video for their song has racked up more than 43 million hits. The cover would be later re-released as “Story Of My Life”.
In the US, the track is used in TLC’s commercials for their summer reality show about weddings, in addition to playing only a tiny segment of the song in the commercials for The Voice.
The song was featured by Glee with Kevin McHale, Damian Mcginty, Chord Overstreet, Samuel Larsen and Harry Shum for the episode “Prom-Taurus”. The premiere of the episode was on May 8, 2012.
The track is included in Just Dance 4 and holds the record for the 2016 Guinness World Record for ‘Most dance game track that the most people play’.
It Makes You Beautiful’ reaches nearly 1 billion streams.
Liam Payne, a former One Direction member, One Direction band took to Instagram to share his joy at achieving an important moment in the industry of music.
The singer wrote the song, “Wow, I just heard that we’re on the verge of achieving an era of billion streams through way! At the beginning of making the song this young during our job, I was aware that I’d be looking at the numbers and thinking, what a feat, brothers! I’m so blessed not just to be able to share this story with all of you but also to have this fantastic community of fans every day that I am discovering about myself and the purpose of all this until today.”
He said, “When I look back at my music and reflect on the strength of the group, including you as our fan base, I’m satisfied that in just five years, we created an amazing soundtrack for me as well as everyone else that was lucky suitable to hear it. The joy and pain of life and everything else in between. We miss you all.”
Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful
Billboard will be celebrating the decade of 2010 by publishing essays about the 100 songs we believe most summarize the decade — the ones which both defined and reflect the musical and cultural landscape of the time.
Billboard will be celebrating the decade of 2010 by presenting essays about the 100 songs that we think best define the decade of 2010 — songs that shaped and reflect the musical and cultural landscape of the time as well as benefit in telling the stories of certain artists who worked behind the scenes, as well as the industry professionals involved.
In the years that followed its debut that followed — the most-sold album, stadium tour, as well as the burgeoning solo careers that developed from an international pop sensationIt’s hard to recall how flawless One Direction’s first single was when it came out. “What Makes You Beautiful” quickly was the first single to introduce American viewers, who were unfamiliar with the group’s appearance on The X Factor, the British rendition of The X Factor, to an unadulterated boy band bubblegum that had not been heard at all on Top 40 radio since the mid-2000s.