What Makes You Beautiful

"What Makes You Beautiful" was written by Savan Kotecha and Carl Falk and produced by Yacoub and Falk. Instrumentation was completed by Falk and Yacoub. Serban Ghenea handled the audio mixing, Tom Coyne the audio mastering, and John Hanes the mix engineering, for which Phil Seaford served as the assistant. and Harry Styles said, "When we were recording in the studio we knew instantly that we wanted this track to be our first single." ==Release and promotion==

"What Makes You Beautiful" premiered on BBC Radio 1 on 10 August 2011, and was released by Syco Music in Europe, Australia and New Zealand via digital download on 11 September 2011. It was issued 14 February 2012 in the United States and was sent by Columbia Records to US contemporary hit radio (CHR) playlists on 28 February 2012. ==Composition==

"What Makes You Beautiful" is a power pop song, Running for 3 minutes and 23 seconds, the song is set in common time with a tempo of 125 beats per minute. Written in the key of E major, it follows the chord progression E–A–B; vocal elements range from the note of B2 to G4. James C. McKinley Jr. of The New York Times compared its chord progression to "La Bamba". The opening guitar riff has been noted as similar to that of "Summer Nights" from the musical Grease and the vocal were identical to "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound of Music. and the middle eight consists of an "oh na na na" hook. Lead vocals are performed by Harry Styles, Liam Payne and Zayn Malik. ==Critical reception==

The song received generally positive reviews from music critics. Robert Copsey of Digital Spy gave "What Makes You Beautiful" four out of five stars, praising its catchy melody and summarising it as "adorable, completely innocent and bound to cause a stir amongst your mates". Zachary Houle of PopMatters called the song a "nice get-up-and-go dance number." Newsround called it "fun, upbeat and incredibly catchy." AllMusic's Matthew Chisling called it an "effervescent and fresh tween love song", and chose it as one of the best tracks on Up All Night. Sophie Goddard from Cosmopolitan called the single "ridiculously catchy". Student Jack Murray rated "What Makes You Beautiful" five out of five stars and called it "not only the best pop single of the year so far, but potentially of any X Factor contestant ever". Murray lauded the songwriting and light production. Tanner Stransky of Entertainment Weekly awarded "What Makes You Beautiful" a B+ grade, calling the song "shallow but crushworthy", writing that the song shows that boy bands are not dying out. Jason Lipshutz of Billboard characterised it as "the real deal", regarding the song as "endlessly playable" as 'N Sync's "Bye Bye Bye". Lipshutz noted its "cheeky electro-pop twist". Stephanie Abrahams of TIME assessed, "The group takes cues from the boy bands of yesteryear with bubblegum lyrics about young love — "The way you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed" they croon in their breakout single – which any parent can get behind. That's a far cry from a typical Nicki Minaj verse." The Observer editor Kitty Empire wrote in an assessment, "With the exception of their persuasive No 1 single, "What Makes You Beautiful", their songs aren't wildly distinctive." "What Makes You Beautiful" won the BRIT Award for Best British Single at the 2012 Brit Awards, which was held on 21 February 2012. The song also won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Music: Love Song at the 2012 Teen Choice Awards. Newsround called the song "fun, upbeat and incredibly catchy" while commenting "there's no way these boys won't be a hit". ==Chart performance==

, 2012 "What Makes You Beautiful" performed considerably well worldwide, but especially so in the British Isles, debuting at number 1 on the Irish Singles Chart on 15 September 2011; its B-side, "Na Na Na" also entered at number 27. "What Makes You Beautiful" became the fourteenth best-selling single of 2011 on the Irish Singles Chart. In the UK, "What Makes You Beautiful" received the highest ever number of pre-orders for a Sony Music Entertainment single. It entered the UK Singles Chart at number 1 on 18 September 2011, shifting 153,965 copies that week—the highest first-week UK sales for any song in 2011 at the time. "What Makes You Beautiful" also debuted at number 1 on the Scottish Singles Chart. and was the 92nd best-selling single of the 21st century in the UK by May 2012. It has sold over 1,000,000 copies in the UK. In Belgium, the song debuted at number 44 on both the Flemish Ultratop 50 and the Wallonian Ultratip; it peaked at numbers 8 and 19, respectively. "What Makes You Beautiful" debuted at number 15 and peaked at number 7 on the Australian Singles Chart. "Na Na Na" also appeared on the Australian Singles Chart of 28 November 2011 at number 84. On the New Zealand Singles Chart, the single entered at number 16, and peaked at number 2 in its fourth and fifth weeks. The song spent eleven consecutive weeks in the chart's top ten. It was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), denoting sales of 30,000 units. The single debuted on the Canadian Hot 100 at number 9, while bowing at number 2 on the Canadian Hot Digital Songs Chart with 19,000 downloads sold, the biggest debut for a first time charted artist since the Stereos's "Summer Girl" entered at number two in June 2009. The single peaked at number 7 on the Canadian Hot 100 and has been certified quadruple platinum by Music Canada, denoting sales of 320,000 copies. On the week ending 21 April 2012, "What Makes You Beautiful" peaked at number 4. As of 30 June 2012, the single had spent thirteen consecutive weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 top ten. The song also became a chart success on other Billboard charts, reaching the top five on the Mainstream Top 40, Adult Pop Songs, and Hot 100 Airplay charts, The track sold 3,881,000 copies in the United States in 2012, becoming the best-selling song by a boy band in digital history. The song was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 21 February 2013, and it has sold 4.8 million copies in the US as of June 2016. "What Makes You Beautiful" has sold over 7 million copies worldwide. Following Liam Payne's death in October 2024, the song saw a surge in sales and streams. The Official Charts Company showed "What Makes You Beautiful" place at number 47 on the UK Midweek Singles Chart. It entered the UK Singles Chart Top 100, on 25 October 2024, at number 23. ==Music video==

The music video for "What Makes You Beautiful" was directed by John Urbano and produced by Stephenie Fernandez. Filmed over two days in July 2011, it opens with scenes of One Direction spending time on a Malibu, California, beach and driving an orange campervan. During the second verse, a group of three girls joins the band at the beach; in Styles' bridge solo, he intimately sings to one girl, Madison McMillin. During the final choruses, the band and girls sit around a fire, lighting sparklers and taking photographs. On each of the five days preceding the video's premiere on 19 August 2011, One Direction posted a teaser trailer of the video online. Each teaser showed footage from the video and behind the scenes, and one member of the band announcing how many days were left until the video premiere. The video was the fourth most-watched music video of 2011 in the UK on MUZU TV. The video won two MTV Video Music Awards for Best Pop Video and Most Share-Worthy Video, and earned the group the award for Best New Artist on 6 September 2012. In November 2018, "What Makes You Beautiful" became the band's first music video to receive 1 billion views on YouTube. A 4K version of the music video was uploaded to the platform on 23 July 2020, as part of the band's tenth-anniversary celebrations. As of November 2024, the video had more than 1.5 billion views on YouTube. ==Live performances==

on 12 March 2012 One Direction performed "What Makes You Beautiful" for the first time on Red or Black? on 10 September 2011. The performance started with hosts Ant & Dec announcing that the band was supposedly running late for their appearance, and cut to a video of One Direction boarding a London Tube carriage full of fans, as the studio version of the song began playing. Each fan on the tube was given a numbered ticket. The band and fans disembarked the tube and made their way to the television studio, where the remainder of the song was sung live. After the song, Styles caught a numbered ticket raining onstage. The number corresponded to a ticket held by a fan from the tube; the colour of the fan's shirt was the correct answer for the Red or Black? challenge. The band performed "What Makes You Beautiful" after its B-side, "Na Na Na", at the BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards on 9 October 2011. The band also performed the song to open telethon Children in Need 2011 on 19 November 2011. After "Gotta Be You" and "One Thing", One Direction performed "What Makes You Beautiful" at Capital FM's Jingle Bell Ball on 4 December 2011, at The O2 Arena. They performed a medley of "She Makes Me Wanna" and "What Makes You Beautiful" with JLS on The X Factor eighth series final on 10 December 2011. The group performed "One Thing" and "What Makes You Beautiful" on Dancing on Ice on 5 February 2012. In Italy, the band performed the song at the 2012 Sanremo Music Festival on 14 February 2012. In France, they performed "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Thing" on Le Grand Journal on 22 February 2012. In the United States, One Direction performed the song along with "More than This" and "One Thing" for the first time on The Today Show at Rockefeller Center on 12 March 2012. An estimated 15,000 fans descended on the plaza. Melissa Lonner, senior entertainment producer for The Today Show, said: "One Direction is relatively unknown with no hits yet. They basically exploded, and all the adults are saying, 'Who are these people, and how do they know about it?'". They also performed the song at the 2012 Kids' Choice Awards on 31 March 2012. One Direction performed "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Thing" on the NBC comedy television show Saturday Night Live on 7 April 2012, and also appeared in a comedy sketch with Sofía Vergara. In Australia, they performed "One Thing" and "What Makes You Beautiful" at the 54th Logie Awards, where they also presented an award for "Most Popular New Female Talent" on 15 April 2012. On 12 August 2012, One Direction performed "What Makes You Beautiful" at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London, which represented the handover to Rio de Janeiro as the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics. It was included on the set list of the group's headlining sold-out show at Madison Square Garden on 3 December 2012. One Direction performed the song on two of their major concert tours: Up All Night Tour (2011–12) and Take Me Home Tour (2013). The song was also added to the set lists of the Where We Are Tour (2014) and On the Road Again Tour (2015). The second verse of the song had originally been sung by Malik. After Malik's departure, Payne took his verse. In 2017, Styles performed the song on his first solo tour. He also performed the song on his second tour. ==Cover versions==

• The song was covered for American television series Glee by Kevin McHale, Chord Overstreet, Harry Shum Jr., Samuel Larsen, and Damian McGinty in the episode titled "Prom-asaurus". It was first aired on 8 May 2012, and is the 19th episode of the third season. Their characters Artie Abrams (McHale), Sam Evans (Overstreet), Mike Chang (Shum), Joe Hart (Larsen), and Rory Flanagan (McGinty) covered the song in the episode, performing a choreographed dance routine to it. Sarah Maloy of Billboard acknowledged, "Screaming girls and choreographed boy band moves are, of course, in no short supply." It charted at numbers 93 and 163 on the Canadian Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart, respectively. • In July 2012, the Piano Guys uploaded an instrumental piano version of the song on YouTube, which went viral. • In 2013, The 1975 covered the song for a BBC Radio One Live Lounge performance. • Chinese Mandopop band TFBoys covered in Chinese version《《青蛙也会变王子》》(The frog also can become Prince). • Kelly Clarkson covered this song on the first season of her talk show The Kelly Clarkson Show, which aired on 10 October 2019. ==Track listing==

;Digital download and CD single • "What Makes You Beautiful" – 3:24 • "Na Na Na" – 3:10 ==Credits and personnel==

;"What Makes You Beautiful" • Tom Coyne – mastering • Carl Falk – writing, production, programming, instruments, guitar • Serban Ghenea – mixing • John Hanes – mix engineering • Savan Kotecha – writing • Phil Seaford – mix engineering assistance • Rami Yacoub – writing, production, programming, instruments, bass ;"Na Na Na" • Dick Beetham – mastering • Iain James – writing • Savan Kotecha – writing • Matt Lawrence – engineering • Greg Marriot – engineering assistance • James Murray – writing • Matt Squire – writing, production, backing vocals, mixing • Mustapha Omer – writing ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts ==Certifications==