The Beatles have fans of both genders, every age, race, broke up in 1970, 44 years ago, and are still massive today, wrote all their own songs, influenced generations and generations of musicians, sold over 1 billion records, etc. They are
timeless.
One Direction doesn't appeal to anybody above the age of 15. And when the gig is up they'll go the way of New Kids, Backstreet, N'Sync, and all the rest. We've seen this movie before.
Forget thinking about lasting 50 years they'll be irrelevant in the next
5. Tops.