Is anyone on Earth having a better year than Harry Styles? The British superstar has been difficult to get away from ever since he announced his third album, Harry’s House, with a cover release last March. Since then, he has appeared in two much-talked-about feature films (Don’t Worry Darling and My Policeman), debuted at Coachella, set a Spotify record, launched his capsule collection with Gucci, and been nominated for a whopping six awards at the 65th annual Grammys.
Styles has won the 2023 Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album for 'Harry's House'.
Harry Styles had won only one Grammy before this — a best pop solo performance award for "Watermelon Sugar" in 2021 — but was nominated for six this year (and in all four 'big' categories for the first time). Harry’s House was up for both Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album.
The lead single from that album, As It Was, was competing in four categories — Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Music Video. As It Was was the most streamed song of 2022 on Spotify.
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Regardless of what’s inside those envelopes, we are going to see Harry Styles on stage as he is also one of the performers at the 65th Grammys night — a substantial list that also includes Bad Bunny, Mary J Blige, Anoushka Shankar, Sam Smith, Lizzo and many more. And on he will go, having bookended this monumental year with the last of the North American leg of “Love on Tour”, sparking joy all along the way.
That ability to spark joy is key to why Harry Styles' music and personality resonate so widely. This is evident on Harry’s House, 13 songs that float in a shimmery, summery soundscape — doused in folk, funk, turn-of-the-century indie pop. In the album’s 42 minutes, there are celebratory horns, food references, a lot of slinky guitar, the hopeful glow of the newly-infatuated, harmonies that hook your brain, disjointed word montages, that blissful mood of lazy late afternoons. Harry’s House, a meditation on “home as a state of mind” was a product of the pandemic; and much more powerful for the lightness it presented as a reprieve from our collective anxiety.
Styles’ solo music — created mostly in collaboration with super-producer Kid Harpoon — often seems to borrow the essence of rock & roll’s greatest gods: Something of The Strokes in As It Was, a barely-there trace of Elton John on Little Freak. In his performances, you can sense a bit of the subversive, renegade charisma of David Bowie, Prince, Mick Jagger. It’s why these songs speak to older generations as much as they do to Harries (as Harry Styles fans call themselves).
But as with every other superstar today, Styles’ stardom stems from the music but extends far beyond into his personality — a wholesome presentation of authenticity. Before the boy from Redditch and One-Directioner came to be recognised as a solo artist (which, let’s face it, didn’t really happen till his sophomore album Fine Line), he’d thronged the bastion of high fashion. The crowning moment was that ground-shaking Vogue cover. It was not enough that Harry Styles became the first man to ever appear solo on that astronomically valued piece of print real estate. It had to be Harry Styles in a lace ball gown and a tuxedo blazer.
Through his long association with Gucci and its former artistic director Alejandro Michele, Harry Styles’ wardrobe grew wilder: florid, camp, feminine, fluid, maximalist. But his fashion flex ended up being much more than an individual statement of taste; it became an expression of freedom, a shrugging off of the codes of masculinity, toxic or not. Suddenly, it was okay for men to paint their nails, wear pearls, vamp in dresses and skirts. Even men forever committed to polo neck shirts felt brave about breaking out their silk shirts.
That link between Harry Styles’ fashion and politics wouldn’t necessarily have been forged if it hadn’t been for his vocal, consistent support for LGBTQIA rights and Black Lives Matter. What hasn’t mattered as much as you’d think it would, is the fact that he guards his private life like a vault. He establishes intimate connections with his adoring audience, singing them birthday songs and celebrating their individual life moments during live shows. But his own self is but a ghost on social media, leaving the paparazzi to work harder.
This continuous public presence, bereft of the personal, may be why he’s been such a constant conversation topic through much of 2022. Did Harry Styles really spit on Chris Pine? What happened with Olivia Wilde? What was in that salad? Is he, in fact, bald? In this fleeting moment, when anything Styles touches turns to gold, the world clamours for a touch of that pixie dust. He keeps them hungry and coming back for more.
And yet, so intense is Harry Styles’ charisma that none of this feels manufactured. Even the stray comment about queerbaiting doesn’t hold up. Maybe no one is interested. Maybe we are all a bit too keen to locate our sources of hope and light in whatever or whoever is willing. His message has been uniform: Treat People With Kindness. He wrote a song about it. The Harries made it into an acronym. Authenticity and genuineness are hallmarks of any kind of superstar in the digital age, but Harry Styles adds a dollop of mystique to it. The whole package comes wrapped up in a boa scarf, ready to be the life of the party.
Also read: 65th Grammy Awards: Beyoncé has perfected the art of longevity
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