TAKE ME HOME

 

September 2012 witnessed the release of "Live While We’re Young", the prime single from the band’s second album, and was apparently a global success. It touched the top ten in nearly every country it documented in and marked the highest one-week opening sales figure for a song by a non-US band in the United States. The second single, "Little Things", resulted in the band's second number one single in the UK. In November 2012, One Direction's second album, Take Me Home, was released globally. It was yet again an international hit, attaining number one in more than 35 countries. On reaching number one on the Billboard 200, the band became the first boy band in the history of US chart to record two number-one albums in the same calendar year together with becoming the first band since 2008 to release two number-one albums in the same year. One Direction became the first band ever to have their first two albums reach on the top of the Billboard 200. Take Me Home, the album, sold 540,000 copies in its first week in the US, debuted at the top at the Billboard 200, and outdid the charts in more than thirty-four further countries. Not to forget, Up All Night and Take Me Home became the number three and number four best-selling albums of 2012 worldwide, with each album selling over 4.4 million copies globally. The album and the single "Little Things" both made their debut at number one in the UK concurrently, making One Direction the youngest act in the history of British chart to achieve that.

The band performed "Little Things" at the 2012 Royal Variety Performance in the occurrence of Queen Elizabeth II, and featured a sold-out show at New York City's Madison Square Garden on 3 December 2012. In February 2013, the band released a cover of "One Way Or Another" and "Teenage Kicks", "One Way Or Another(Teenage Kicks)”, as the 2013 Comic Relief single. As part of their participation with the UK charity, One Direction toured to Ghana to volunteer at a children's hospital, visit a school and make contributions.

Succeeding the release of Take Me Home, One Direction boarded on their second concert tour in February 2013, the “Take Me Home Tour”. The concert trip comprised of 123 shows in Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania. Sale of tickets reached 300,000 in just a day of release in the UK and Ireland, which involved a six-date sell-out at the O2 Arena in London. In the Australian and New Zealand markets, tickets earned US$15.7 million, with all 190,000 tickets being sold for the eighteen shows to be held. The tour acknowledged critical acclamation from music critics who applauded the band's live vocals and their performance aptitudes and was a profitable achievement, selling 1,635,000 tickets from 134 shows. In total, the tour earned $114 million. The Official Charts Company discovered that One Direction had sold 2,425,000 records in the UK by February 2013.