Harry Styles is the musician we were all waiting for. He’s a breath of fresh air, in every sense of the phrase. His music is a revamped twist on classic rock. He is a risk taker and trailblazer. He is accepting, progressive and finally free.
My love for Harry Styles started way back when I was 13 years old. I am now 22, so it has almost been an entire decade of loving this gem of a performer. When I was introduced to the young Brit, he was in my generation’s boyband, One Direction. I was immediately swept away in the crushing young love that I had for these foreign boys who sang with sweet voices. And while I was particularly hung up on Niall Horan (I still am), Harry was always a close second. His charm, voice and smile carried him through. And to be honest, he always felt like he was meant to be the Justin Timberlake of the group. Now, of course, he wasn’t the first to exit the group. But it always seemed there would be much more out there for him.
I remember exactly where I was when I first listened to his first solo record. I was out in Los Angeles for my brother’s college graduation, and I started to play the tunes on a trolley up to the Getty Museum. It was picturesque, and matched the soaring styles of one Mr. Styles. It was the introduction to a glam-rock-esque leap into a new territory for the former boybander. My love for him only grew.
Flash forward to today, and Harry’s second solo album just dropped. I could wax poetic about the man forever. I even came out in an article about his first single from this record, so… there’s that. But today, I am writing to review and celebrate the absolute delight of a masterpiece that is Fine Line.
Fine Line is a record “all about having sex and feeling sad”, according to Styles. It’s an album that explores the end of a relationship, mainly. It is rumored to be about his breakup with ex, French model Camille Rowe. Whether it is or isn’t is up to speculation, but that’s not really the point. Harry lives in the space of figuring out what his breakup feels like and means to him, and that is something so many of us can relate to. Each track is imbued with an airy quality that feels right in the world Harry has created. Every song tells a story, and I love each and every one.
If you want to hear Harry talk about the world he lived in while writing/recording all of this glory, check out his 50 minute interview with Zane Lowe above! It gives you a lot of incredible insight into his process and gives a super chill insider approach.
1. Golden
This can best be described as the song version of driving down the Pacific Coast Highway at sunset. It’s golden hour, the top of the convertible is down, and your hair is blowing in the wind. Everything is wonderful. Okay, lyrically, the song gets a bit sad, (fit with a repeated plea of “I don’t want to be alone”), but it’s hard to focus on that when the vibe of the track is filled with sunny SoCal goodness. It’s a solid song and a nice intro into the 70’s influence and lyrical melancholy featured in the rest of the album.
2. Watermelon Sugar
Oh, Watermelon Sugar. Number one, Mr. Styles seems to have a thing for fruit! On the last album we had rock anthem “Kiwi”, and now we continue the theme with watermelons and strawberries, (with the addition of “Cherry” later on in the record). Rumors are circling around about the subject matter of the song. I’ll let you figure that out for yourself, but hey… I’m not saying I’m not a fan. This is a groovy track with some nice layered harmonies and horns. What’s not to like?
3. Adore You
A full-on BOP. First, I listened to this for the first time drunk in an Uber, and that somehow feels right. This song is laced with Harry’s desperation, and my god… I want to be adored by Harry Styles. He’d walk through fire for me! A babe. This song has a really nice driving motion, and the baseline has me dancing. And then there’s the whole video situation where Harry not only created a fictional island and had a huge campaign for this track, featuring his best fish friend and the Isle of Eroda. Absolute genius.
4. Lights Up
Y’all know I love this track, and even more than that, I love the video. I’m not going to write about it, because it is featured in a past article. I still love this song, and the fantasy of a drenched, glittery Styles.
5. Cherry
I just feel so deeply for Harry with this track. It’s the exploration of a past love and how they have moved onto someone else. He’s talking about how he doesn’t want them to call their new lover what they called him. How he misses their accent and friends, even though they are still in his life. It’s a piece of jealousy born into a sweet and sad song, with a lovely plucking guitar. Harry is so bold as to feature the voice of an ex (presumably Camille) in a voicemail at the end of the track. But it’s a nice endpoint, and a clear display of vulnerability from Harry. It’s a sweet memory that is lost to the past, and it might hurt now, but that’s okay.
6. Falling
The most outwardly stark and sad of tracks on Harry’s album, we have a classic piano ballad. To be fair, this feels a bit reminiscent of a One Direction tune. And Harry says it took him 20 minutes to write the song, which explains some of the simplicity. He’s deeply heartbroken and changing into a person he doesn’t quite like. Haven’t we all felt that in a breakup?
7. To Be So Lonely
This song is a drunk phone call. The strumming pattern is a bit unsettling and a bit disorienting, but they always resolve into easy chords. The soft harmonies are almost soothing, and the lyrics are so honest, it almost hurts. Harry is confessing his reasons for being a bit of a dick post-breakup. His ex is attempting friendship, and he can’t deal with it – he’s reeling over his loneliness. A nice mid-album moment. This song is unapologetic, and I needed to hear this.
8. She
An absolute masterpiece of a track. This is a six minute soaring daydream, in a way reminiscent of the first single of his first album, “Sign of the Times”. I don’t even know what to make of this song, but I know that I love it deeply. It’s cinematic, and spacey. Harry spoke about how he and his band were all on shrooms while they wrote it, which is perfect and honest and you can feel it in the DNA of the track. Everything is loose and free. Harry sings about his dream woman, but he doesn’t know who she is. It’s the searching that we can hear, laced in his dreamy vocals.
9. Sunflower, Vol. 6
Here we begin my favorite run of the record. The three upcoming tracks just feel so connected, and I love them. Sunflower is such a funky little groove, and it feels like it could have easily belonged to Vampire Weekend at some point! (They also have a fairly new bop titled “Sunflower”! Go figure.) If we’re looking at this album as a stages of grief moment over this relationship, we have reached the final stage: acceptance! Harry is seemingly happy, looking on the past as a sweet memory, and leaving it behind. The stacked harmonies are delicious, and the guitar has me hopping around. Also adds some bizarre vocal touches at the end, and it’s so very charming.
10. Canyon Moon
This song makes me want to head back to camp, and sing around a fire. The whistles, the driving guitar, the repetitive quality – it all fits in with a sing-along moment, and I want to live in the memory Harry is recalling. I can smell firewood, and hear it crackling in the distance, because this song has the ability to take me there. And if Harry Styles is going home, as he doesn’t fail to mention in the song, hell! I’m going with him.
11. Treat People With Kindness
Harry, being the sweetie pie that he is, has a slogan: Treat People With Kindness. It’s littered all over his merch, it was his swan song call at the end of his recent stint on SNL. It’s even how he signs off his tweets! Well now, he’s put it in a lovely song, about love and acceptance and being yourself. And maybe that sounds gimmicky, but it’s what we need in the world right now.
12. Fine Line
The title track, and the end of our journey. And what a way to end! This feels like the perfect way to sum up the roller coaster that is this record. Harry goes through the ending of a tremendous relationship, and through it, he is left looking back. Love and hate are divided by a very thin line, and so are beginnings and endings, sometimes. This track celebrates Harry’s declaration that “we’ll be alright”, even when it doesn’t feel like we might be. So far, I think this song is the most beautiful thing Harry has ever written and recorded. And I had a moment last night, walking through Harlem, crying to this track. Nothing is quite as cinematic as that. It’s an epic, anthem supernova of a song, and a perfect period to the end of the sentence.
This record is sensory, and I am so proud to call Harry one of my favorite solo-artists. He is so unabashedly himself, and it takes so much bravery to dig to the deepest parts of yourself, letting them all out for the world to consume. Though his star has always been on the rise, this is the record that will send him into the stratosphere.
