A feeling of familiar mystery washes over you when listening to “Harry Styles,” the self-titled debut album from the former One Direction star.
While this sounds like an oxymoron, it applies specifically to the experience fans have when listening to his music, fans who have stuck around since the band’s split early last year.
Styles keeps a low profile in the public eye. He’s a familiar face, but fans don’t know much about him. He likes evoking wonder, and that’s exactly what he does on this album. His songs grab your attention just enough with their soft melodies and lovelorn lyrics, but they leave you wanting more.
Styles’ voice, real and raspy, is highlighted perfectly by the ‘70s sound of the album. With just 10 tracks, it’s a concise tribute to that decade’s romantic rock music.
Styles’s influences are obvious, with The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Fleetwood Mac coming to mind on most tracks. He unapologetically stays true to these vintage sounds and makes no effort to put a modern twist on the music that has played such a large role in shaping him as a musician.
On tracks like “Carolina” and “Kiwi,” he leans to a faster and more upbeat guitar, while “Woman” and “Meet Me in the Hallway” are mellow and eerie. Album closer “From the Dining Table” showcases Styles’s ethereal vocal range through layered and sobering lyrics about loneliness.
Styles’s personal life is still a mystery to most. He rarely posts on social media and hasn’t given fans much more to contemplate since he’s taken up a solo career.
While most of the album’s lyrics revolve around Styles’s fascinating infatuation with “good” girls, they also reveal that he deals with love, loss and life the same as everyone else.
This is the first break free for Styles as a solo. After being in a boy band for several years, recording and performing everything from singer-songwriter acoustic ballads to full on European EDM club tracks, it must feel so freeing to finally be able to make the music he wants to make. And oh, how lucky we are that he did.
