Harry Styles Refreshes Listeners With a Unique Sound In Recent Album “Fine Line”
By: Eliza Wicks
Tags: Music, Album Review, Pop Music, Pop Culture

By: Eliza Wicks

Harry Styles has come a long way since the fall of One Direction. Around a year after leaving One Direction in 2017, the young songwriter released his first-ever solo album Harry Styles including hits such as “Sweet Creature” and “Sign of the Times”, launching his solo career. Since then, the pop sensation has toured all over the world and in November Styles released two new songs from his long-expected album Fine Line and followed up by dropping the rest of the album in early December.

Styles smiling at a concert

The album rocketed up the charts to #1 in its first week out with the 3rd biggest week for an album in 2019, preceded by Taylor Swift(Lover, and Post Malone(Hollywood’s Bleeding). The British singer has also been nominated for Mastercard British Album of the Year.

Arguably, the pressure of maintaining a successful solo career after the dismantling of a smash hit group can be intimidating. Often, many decide to quit music or sacrifice creativity and uniqueness for some catchy pop songs to stay relevant. However, that is not the case here with Fine Line.

Straying away from the mainly sad rock-ballad style of his first album, Styles ventures into many different sounds from the folk-rock song “Canyon Moon” to synthesized rhythms of “Sunflower” and his carefree uplifting pop-rock songs “Adore You” and “Watermelon Sugar.”

In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Styles speaks of one track, “Lights Up.” The song, for him, is a freedom cry, as he sings, “Shine, step into the light/ I’m not ever going back.” Over the past two years, while writing the album, the young singer revealed that he struggled with finding himself musically and emotionally.

Styles has his own distinct style both in music and fashion

However, in a burst of inspiration, he wrote this song. The singer expressed, “I think ‘Lights Up’ came at the end of a long period of self-reflection, self-acceptance…I just feel more comfortable being myself.”

Although the album does contain happier notes than Styles’ previous work, it is not always so sunny with many tracks, specifically the song “Cherry” which reveals the British artist’s failed relationship with French model Camille Rowe. On the track, Styles sings, “Don’t you call him baby…/Don’t you call him what you used to call me,” which many speculate to be Theo Niarchos, Rowe’s latest love interest, soon after the French model broke it off with Styles. The song reminisces love lost and the feeling of knowing that you’ve been moved on from and forgotten.

Other tracks, namely “To Be So Lonely” resemble the balladry of Styles’ first album and speaks of the delicate balance between staying friends with someone you still love and hurting yourself in the process. This is shared with the last song and album namesake, “Fine Line” which deals with a similar concept.

Later in the interview, Styles explains how the switches between tones in the album are a representation of his experiences during its making, saying, “The times when I felt good and happy were the happiest I’ve ever felt in my life. And the times when I felt sad were the lowest that I’ve ever felt in my life.”

And that is exactly what Styles expresses in this album

Fine Line Album Cover

With his new album, the young rockstar blends together many different styles (no pun intended) in this album in a way that shows his branching out from his mainly rock background. Fine Line offers a mix of sweet and dreamy tunes but with tinges of bitter sadness all wrapped up in one album, a rollercoaster of emotions that carries a resemblance to human life with its ups and downs.

Fine Line touches on struggles that Styles has faced while also letting listeners relate and find their own meaning within the lyrics. Yet it also celebrates the beauty and pleasures of life in an exploration of melodies and guitar. It is the sound of a young man jumping headfirst into new waters with a unique combination of genres, setting Styles apart from others on the radio.