The long overdue Harry Styles thread

Let's just give in.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/harry-styles-cover-interview-album-871568/

Among my fave quotes (absolutely no irony):

“We’d do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney’s Ram in the sunshine,” he says. “We’d just turn the speakers into the yard.” The chocolate edibles were kept in the studio fridge, right next to the blender. “You’d hear the blender going, and think, ‘So we’re all having frozen margaritas at 10 a.m. this morning.’” He points to a corner: “This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue. So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place.”

...

In the studio, he’s overseeing the string quartet. He has the engineers play T. Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer” for them, to illustrate the vibe he’s going for.

...

He got so obsessive about Joni Mitchell and her 1971 classic Blue, he went on a quest. “I was in a big Joni hole,” he says. “I kept hearing the dulcimer all over Blue. So I tracked down the lady who built Joni’s dulcimers in the Sixties.” He found her living in Culver City. “She said, ‘Come and see me,’” Hull says. “We turn up at her house and he said, ‘How do you even play a dulcimer?’ She gave us a lesson. Then she got a bongo and we were all jamming with these big Cheshire Cat grins.”

...

He’s always had a fervent female fandom, and, admirably, he’s never felt a need to pretend he doesn’t love it that way. “They’re the most honest — especially if you’re talking about teenage girls, but older as well,” he says. “They have that bullshit detector. You want honest people as your audience. We’re so past that dumb outdated narrative of ‘Oh, these people are girls, so they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ They’re the ones who know what they’re talking about. They’re the people who listen obsessively. They fucking own this shit. They’re running it.”

and he loves London Town, Back to the Egg, and "Landslide."

And tattoos.

why is harry styles?
did the ed sheeran bot break down?

white girls needed someone whose photoshoots they could quote-tweet with "ended toxic masculinity!!"

no offense to white girls, i'm not any better than y'all, not by a long shot

“sign of the times” is a great great song

i sometimes hate it

I was team Zayn during the OD days and right after (why because he look interesting) and never cared too much for SOTT (though I did like it), but I find myself loving both “Lights Up” and “Watermelon Sugar” a lot. Styled for the Harness!

One extra reason I love “Lights Up” is that the intro reminds me of one of my favourite Nederpop classics:
http://www.youtube.com/Y8fRQc3lBag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iquhBgM-Qv0

i think this album's going to be pretty good

idk, that one seems a notch or two below the others.

btw, for everyone who sent in postcards with their guesses, the nugget in question was this, of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8fRQc3lBag

"adore you" is the best one yet imo

it's better than "watermelon sugar" for me, i like it

Album is excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ3PeDGswz4

i don't if it's excellent, but it's better than the first one.
the first stretch until 'cherry' is amazing.

i’m on “she” right now, so far this record is fucking awesome

is that Harry doing Gainsborough/Sea Change-era Beck

are you talking about the album cover or the song

i only have mixed feelings with 'falling'.
loving the last one.

title track is incredible

"falling" is v much a middling mid-album ballad but it's still getting to me

"treat people with kindness" is like harry trying to rewrite the zombies' "friends of mine" and i'm not mad

i bet that by monday i'll be totally won over by this record.

Been playing this daily since it came out. So many great little production bits, perfectly sequenced, and enjoy every song. Can't wait to finally play it on headphones after giving it to the OB&C for Xmas.

Loved reading that he took a bunch of mushrooms and played "Ram" to get inspired. Feel like this might get lost in terms of year-end lists due to the release date, but time will be kind. Far better than the debut, which was pretty good in its own right.

kinda love it now. 'falling' is the only song that i skip most of the times.

Maximum Dad this morning: woke up early to take my older daughter and her friends to the arena to wait in line to get wristbands to get good pit-placement for the Harry Styles show tonight. They are inordinately excited.

i've mostly been a h8r toward his solo career but "as it was" is probably my fav single he's put out thus far, tho those stupid bells almost pull me out of it

The video is easily and I’m not just saying this, one of the best I’ve ever seen.

really amazing song and video imo

feels to me like a chillwave "blinding lights"

(i like the song a lot)

holy cow at that video, quite an achievement. song is a mega earworm but not my bag.

It's aight.

Funny, you could almost believe it was Noel G on that thread start.

Almost...

heard "As It Was" in the wild today (well, at the office) and it sounded fantastic.

i heard the album, which leaked awfully early. his best yet imo, consistent with a few stunners. enjoy that he seems to have crafted this low key solo career on his own terms, given the rank desperation given off by some of his former bandmates

"As It Was" seems programmed precisely for my ears but I'm cool towards it except as a radio jam.

also: i don’t remember thinking anything about the quality of his vocal in 1d but, at least on this record and the last one, now i love his singing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMAPW7ZoOLw

Not bad.

yep.

re the album- some don't like his lyrics

NY Times review excerpt-

The wedding-band funk of “Daydreaming” and the lyrically inane “Cinema” feel comparatively frictionless, and display Styles’s unfortunate tendency to write lyrics that feel more like precisely posed Instagram carousels than conjurings of specific emotional states.

Washington Post excerpt- “Harry’s House” is a lyrically vague offering that sticks to you-know-I-love-you-babe platitudes. You won’t feel as if you know Styles any better when it’s over — a wise move for an overexposure-courting celebrity in a public relationship, but criminally deficient for a would-be confessional singer-songwriter.

I will note that precisely posed Instagram carousels DO conjure emotional states.

I didn't read the review, but I noted in mind how Styles is Heartstopper in human form -- and, boy, do precisely posed Instagram carousels advance its narrative.

mind = mine

don’t insult heartstopper like that

I listened to Fine Line a lot with my (now almost 14yr old) daughter during the first lockdown and I find the title track and 'Falling' almost unbearably poignant. We're listening to the new one now (bought her the vinyl) and it's sounding really good. 'Matilda' and 'Satellite' current standouts for me.

did you see this? harry styles spit on chris pine. yeah, it's true. people are dissecting the footage looking for a second spitter but apparently it only came from one direction pic.twitter.com/76GiOxj8Ye

— Ben Rosen (@ben_rosen) September 6, 2022

:(

Worry? I’m not even here, darling.

Caption: Chris Pine astral projecting at Venice Film Festival. September 5, 2022. pic.twitter.com/qSU1XbTWDp

— Richard Newby (@RICHARDLNEWBY) September 5, 2022

https://pitchfork.com/news/harry-styles-is-playing-30-nights-at-madison-square-garden/

sure is a lot of nights at MSG. I guess I never realized how popular this guy is

and with Jamie XX opening all 30 shows at MSG?

Shania Twain supporting in London!

That...do impress me much.

the title of his forthcoming record is so laughably on-brand

I have been texted by my child that his new song "definitely cool sounded."

It's out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA_eCxPay7E

first song of his where i feel like it's more than just pleasantly good

i dig the verse, but the chorus crosses into late era coldplay territory for me

Can't imagine that getting played on the radio, but I'm sometimes surprised. Maybe they have a more obvious crowdpleaser at the ready. Probably.

What radio stations do you listen to Josh? As I imagine it will be all over the radio stations here

I was just thinking pop stations in general. It seems too subtle, compared to his last few ubiquitous (and more conventional) songs, but maybe it sounds great in a car!

I'm not much for dance pop, generally speaking, but this new song is good! It's so sad for a happy dance track. And all those cool little arrangement details.

Harry's House is terrific!

Just a pop superstar having fun with how much he loves the later Wings albums, early Hosono, and the city pop craze. Catchy as hell. And full of ingenious touches -- sounds like Devendra Banhart sometimes! (makes sense, Devendra being another Hosono head)

If it had come my way advertised as some obscure artist's homemade arthouse pop album, I'd believe it.

I can't remember where I came across this, so it might have been via one of you, but I thought this was interesting

https://exiledfan.substack.com/p/harry-styles-the-prince-of-potemkin

Brits performance was quite brilliant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfHuIjbRk8o

can't believe this queerbaiting mediocrity is the closest we have to a male pop icon in 2026

I refer you to one B. Bunny.

I really love Aperture. Sounds like he's been listening to BGM/Technodelic-era YMO -- it's not in the depth of the arrangement that I hear it, but the vibe, yes.

weird performance. i do rly like the song tho

Well i think the new album is pretty great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6jQo3-iCao

that's the next single? alarmingly mediocre if so. not that i expect better from him in general

Disappointingly yet expectedly mid, this guy is just missing something essential in the songwriting urgency dept.

The song he wrote by himself is one of the better ones imo

Idk I feel like this album is heavy on vibes even if not full of super catchy hooks. I keep playing it on repeat, not tired of it at all.

I'm enjoying this album, though it sounds almost as low-effort as it is low-key, like the songs maybe needed just a little more punch or another pass but Harry (who whoever) had better things to do, or was out of time (tour coming!), or, best case scenario, was simply satisfied enough with what they had. I'd much rather an album be relatively subdued than look-at-me try-hard. Besides, Styles has enough people looking at him, so I respect him releasing an album that demands you lean in a little to listen to it lest it fade entirely into the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILCJKc_I79M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZl5XVhZPQU

This album hasn't done much for me and have no desire to really play it atm.

It's okay, but the bits I like about it mostly feel like glancing resemblances to other, superior albums (e.g. Junior Boys' 'It's All True' or Nine Inch Nails' 'Hesitation Marks').

When he sings "this must be POP" I don't believe him. I like the one he wrote himself best, though he sings "Let's go hangover chasin'" as if he's never had one.