Then, this week, no doubt encouraged by the fact that its first album debuted at No. 1 one on the Billboard 200 (they're the first UK group in history to go straight in at No. 1 with their first album, depressingly), the band announced a giant North American arena tour -- for summer 2013, because it's just too busy to do it before that. One Direction is here, ladies and gents, and, tragically, it has zero intention of going anywhere.

The United Kingdom has a long history with boy bands -- it's an artform that never fell out of favor over there -- but not since the Spice Girls has a British pop band exploded in America to such a sudden and startling degree. The boy bands that have filled stadiums and set pulses racing in the U.K. for the last two decades haven't even made the slightest dent over here.