As you might know last summer Olly Murs toured with the boys of One Direction for the first time in America. Now, Olly says that those guys along with the power of social media is what helped him successfully bring his music to the states.

"In the UK, people don't give X Factor contestants that much credit," he told the Daily Mirror. "Over in the States, they're listening to my music instead of saying 'Oh, he's from the X Factor... whatever.' I don't get the credit I deserve."

"So it's a really good thing for me. I'm able to come over here and be an artist – people are judging me on my abilities and my talent for my music," he added.

Olly also says that he doesn't think he'll ever reach the heights of success One Direction has, but says that he's enjoying the journey so far.

"I don't ever expect to reach the heights of One Direction over here, but I believe I can be a success. And so far it's going well. It’s been brilliant."

Olly also added that social media has changed the game and that it really helped him make an impact.

"Technology has changed with social media, Twitter and YouTube. Without that I don't think I'd ever be able to have impact."

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The great thing about One Direction concerts is that you never know what to expect and they always change things up a bit for each show. During the Twitter Questions part of their sold out show on Monday (May 20) in Milan, Italy, they were asked to sing the theme song of the hit show Friends. 

And if you know the boys of One Direction, you probably know that Liam Payne especially is a huge fan of the show and that he considers himself most like the character Ross. The crowd loved every minute of the performance as they joined Liam and the boys in singing the classic TV show theme song.

You can watch One Direction jam out with the crowd as they perform the theme song below.

One Direction has been praised by the Backstreet Boys for their cover of "I Want It That Way." The 1D boys recently covered the song during the Twitter Questions segment of their Take Me Home Tour in Sweden earlier this month.

"I think they did a good job on it," Howie Dorough told MTV. "One of the writers, that's written almost all their big stuff, Rami Yacoub, he worked with us in the early days with Max Martin and stuff like that, some of the biggest songs of ours."

"The sound that they've originated was definitely not too far from where it came, from the same Swedish camp."

"It's nice to see groups like that pay homage to us," he added. "We definitely paid homage to groups in the earlier days that we admired like Boyz II Men, Color Me Badd, Shai, New Edition."

"So it's cool. I think they did a great job. It seemed like it went over really well."

Isn't that cool? This is what we like to see, all of our favorite boy bands getting along. It sure is a nice change of pace, right?

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Simon Cowell took to Twitter last night to praise his boys in One Direction and their 3D movie, give an update on the progress of Fifth Harmony and Emblem3's debut album's, and revealed that the judging panel for X Factor USA will be announced on Monday (May 20), just one day before they start live auditions. 

It was previously announced that Mario Lopez would return to host the show and that Simon would once again be joined by Demi Lovato on the panel but there has been many rumors about who might get the other two spots. 

"We start x factor auditions in charleston on Tuesday. The new panel will be announced Monday. This is going to be an interesting show!" he tweeted. 

He also had some word's of advice to anyone looking to try out for the show and advised them to look at superstars like Pink, Beyonce, and One Direction. "For anyone looking for advice on who too look to as an inspiration when you are auditioning for one of our shows. One name. Beyonce. And pink. And of course one direction. Who made it happen through sheer determination," he tweeted.

That wasn't the only praise Mr. Cowell had for the boys of One Direction, he also said that their upcoming 3D movie, This Is Us, is looking really good so far.

If you think you love One Direction's Liam Payne now, get ready to love him even more and swoon more than ever before. That's because it's being reported today that Liam stepped in to defend a waitress after a few footballers were being a bit rude to a waitress at his favorite London nightclub, the Funky Buddah Club.

According to the reports, Liam was out with his friends in the VIP section of the club and also there, a few tables down, were a few footballers (or soccer players as we say here in the United States). One of them, England international Aaron Lennon, is said to have pulled a waitresses hair to get her attention. 

That's when Liam noticed the waitress getting a bit uncomfortable with the whole situation and confronted the players. "What the f*** are you doing?" he reportedly asked the player. Aaron Lennon was dragged away from the table after Liam confronted him.

It's a big day for One Direction news! At today's press conference in London, where they announced their 2014 Where We Are Stadium Tour, the boys dropped some hints about their upcoming third album. The guys say the album will be out before the end of the year and will have a "edgier" sound to reflect their growing personalities.

"There will be a new album this year with a rockier and edgier tone to it," Louis Tomlinson told reporters about the highly anticipated album.

Liam Payne added: "We've written a lot of the songs on it. It's a bit more edgy. It's grown as we've grown."

Ooooohhhh that sounds pretty awesome, right? We can just imagine the lyrics they'll be singing this time around and since the boys have written more songs on this album, you know it's gonna be great. 

There's no title for the album quite yet, but some are speculating it might be called "Where We Are" to match the stadium tour title. 

Are you excited for One Direction's third album?

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For about the past week or so One Direction has been teasing their 'One Big Announcement' and today was the big day! The boys held a press conference at London's Wembley Stadium today (May 16) to announce the first legs of their 2014 'Where We Are' Stadium Tour. This is the boys' first stadium tour and they say they will be visiting more countries than ever before. 

"It's important the fans and everyone who comes to see the show know it's going to be much bigger and new songs," Harry Styles said at the press conference today. "A completely different tour."

Liam Payne said: "We're looking at the pitch out in Wembley and we've got no idea how we're going to sell the tickets."

"I think it would be quite interesting to sing a song in Spanish," he added. "Niall can sing The Lion King in Spanish!"

So far dates have only been announced for Latin America, Ireland, and the UK, however the band promises that dates in other countries will be announced soon. Here's the dates that have been announced so far along with the day tickets go on-sale:

Nothing's better than a good 'ol cover song! And One Direction delivered one on Wednesday night at their concert in Stockholm, Sweden. During their Twitter questions segment of the night the boys (well mostly Liam and Niall, if we're being honest here) took on a shortened version of the Backstreet Boys' hit song "I Want It That Way," after being asked by a fan in the crowd.

The crowd was very delighted as they joined Liam, Niall, and the boys in singing the boy band classic and it's pretty freaking awesome. 

Check out the video below and try to hold back your screams and tears.

EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING - One Direction's Liam Payne has gone shirtless (insert fangirl screen here). Liam and his buddy Andy Samuels, who Hit Zone interviewed back in January, took a video of themselves on a boat in Norway and it's 22 seconds of joy for 1D fans. 

The short clip see's the boys enjoying their time in Oslo, Norway on a speedboat of sorts. Fortunately for all One Direction fans Andy documented the moment and posted the video on Keek. They give a short summary of events and declare their love for Norway.

"Today was actually an amazing day, Norway is one of my favourite places ever!!! Me and @Real_Liam_Payne love it," Andy wrote along with the video.

Based on this, it's safe to sayLiam's rumored split from ex-girlfriend Danielle Peazer isn't bumming him out too much as he smiled and laughed throughout the video and seems to be having the time of his life on tour. 

Alright, enough talking, here's the video:

New UK boy band Union J reckon that they can put a stop to the feud between certain members of One Direction and certain members of The Wanted. That's because they believe that all the boy bands should stick together and defend each other instead of compete.

While talking about who they'd like to collaborate with, Josh Cuthbert told Star magazine: "We could do something with One Direction - it would be massive, there would be so many of us on stage."

Hmmm...that would be interesting. And they think they can put a stop to the feud between the other two big UK boy bands.

"We're hoping we could bring One Direction and The Wanted together and get them to make friends again," Jaymi Hensley continued. "We'll stand in the middle so they don't have a scrap."

That would be nice, but let's also remember that only certain members of each band have been involved in the feud's, it's not necessarily both groups as a whole so it might be possible. We can hope, right? These boy bands ought to stick together. 

"We've lost JLS... us boybands have to stick together. We need love and lots of hugs - not fighting."

Couldn't agree more! Why can't we all just be friends? What are your thoughts on all this?

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