Like Rome, One Direction wasn’t built in a day. Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson all auditioned separately for The X Factor, before Nicole Scherzinger realised their potential as a boy band.
The British singing competition released the extended cut of Tomlinson’s audition this week, and it’s evident that the then-teenager didn’t have the singing chops to go solo at the time.
The unseen footage from 2010 is a real blast from the past: Tomlinson has a mop hairstyle falling somewhere between Justin Bieber and George Harrison; he performs songs by 00s favourites Scouting for Girls and Plain White T’s; Simon Cowell looks as grumpy as ever.
After his Scouting for Girls cover gets off to a rocky start, Cowell stops the music, asking him for a second song. “You’re actually doing well, which is why asked you to do a second song,” he tells the visibly nervous Tomlinson.
His performance of Plain White T’s ‘Hey There Delilah’ goes a little better, although Scherzinger still notes, “You feel like you look a little defeated.”
Tomlinson implores the judges to take a chance on him, and Cowell, Scherzinger, and Louis Walsh give him the three “yes” verdicts that he needs to go through to the next round.
The rest, of course, is history. Tomlinson just completed the Australian leg of his mammoth global solo tour last month, with several European dates up next.
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In less good news for the singer, a source has revealed that Tomlinson is supposedly “gutted” about a series of unreleased songs that have leaked before the release of his new album.
“To say Louis is gutted is an understatement. No one knows how these things happen but it’s beyond frustrating when they do,” the source told The Sun newspaper’s Bizarre column. “Bosses at his label are investigating. ‘All Along’ was written when Louis was working on his debut album 2020 ‘Walls’ with a few writers but it never made the cut.”
Tomlinson has finished recording his new album, titled Faith In The Future, and it’s set for release on November 11th, according to Amazon.
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