AEveryone loves Harry Styles. Arcade Fire, for example, who recorded a virtually faithful cover version of his hit “As It Was” for the BBC. Or British indie band Wet Leg, who fainted theatrically when they learned Styles had covered their single “Wet Dream” for the BBC. Or Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, who Styles has been friends with since the release of his 2017 solo debut. And so does Joni Mitchell, the tall 78-year-old singer-songwriter who tweeted, “Love the title,” upon the release of his amazing new work Harry’s House.
She assumed the title was a reference to the song “Harry’s House/Centerpiece” from her 1975 album Hissing of Summer Lawns. Though Styles is known to be a fan of Joni Mitchell, the title was actually a reference to Haruomi Hosono’s 1973 debut Hosono House, as he explained in an interview. Haruomi who? Ah, you have to love Styles for naming influences that are so wonderfully off track that even people who deal with them professionally don’t even know about them.
The 28-year-old Briton has now been on stage for twelve years, six years with the boy band One Direction and then alone. For all we know, he’s one of the few pop stars who can handle fame and the spotlight well. When he’s on stage he seems to enjoy it, when he’s not on stage it’s not a problem. Apparently he doesn’t feel the urge to distance himself from his time with One Direction, which is wonderful given that a large portion of his fans are still veteran 1D fans. At the Berlin concert, the entire range of his audience is shown: daughters, mothers, fathers, sons, everyone is there.
With his professional experience, Styles now has precise ideas about what to do at his concerts for the purpose of better togetherness. For example, grabbing the hands of their respective neighbors left and right. Turn left and say “I love you,” then turn right and do something else (the instruction was lost in the noise), then close your eyes until… (again, excitement swallows his voice), yes, until you do open again at some point.
Harry Styles in concert
What: Anthony Pham
You imagine that closing your eyes is a kind of token of confidence that nothing bad will happen to you around Styles. Like “Harry’s House”, his concerts are a kind of safe space, but not necessarily for the ears. Bands like Manowar, Motörhead and Kiss have at different stages of their careers claimed to have the loudest concerts around, but of course back then they couldn’t have known about Harry Styles’ fans.
For example from Tom. He proudly walks in a One Direction t-shirt, which Styles immediately catches the eye. As you learn, he got it from his girlfriend Sofia, who is standing next to him. The two have been together for four years. Or from Zoha. She is standing in the front row, holding a sign with a special request for help. She wants Styles to assist her in coming out to her mother. Conveniently, her mother is in the audience, albeit on the other side of the fan block shared by a catwalk. Styles asks Zoha’s mother’s name and apparently understands Anneto. So he looks for Anneto, finds her, walks over to her and says: “Zoha is out!” Anneto doesn’t seem too surprised by the info. She holds her thumb up, then the rainbow flag is waved together.
He just has no problem
There are a number of reasons why Styles became a ward of his queer audience. One of the most important is probably the song “Medicine”, which doesn’t even exist as an official studio recording – but that doesn’t stop Styles from playing it night after night at the urgent request of his fans. In Berlin, in the Mercedes-Benz Arena, there is “Medicine” as the third encore, which is a smart choice because the audience suddenly creates a noise level that can hardly be increased. The song, which one can assume is essentially about ecstasy pills, goes: “Tingle running through my bones/ The boys and the girls are in/ I mess around with him/ And I’m okay with it (Oh-ah)” – so he makes out with him and has no problem with it.
That’s actually half the secret: Styles has no problem – not with the dissolution of gender roles, not with sexual diversity, in front of Styles, so to speak, everyone is equal. To paraphrase his New Zealand colleague Lorde, Styles is a prettier Jesus, a prettier Savior. He picks up babies. He pets dogs. He won a Grammy for a song allegedly about the female orgasm.
Maybe “Watermelon Sugar” is really just about sweet watermelons, who knows, especially since according to the lyrics “strawberries on a summer evening” also play a role. In general, Styles seems to have a weakness for a variety of fruit varieties, with kiwi, grapefruit, berries and cherries playing an important role in his work.
In order to correspond visually to the colorful world of fruit, he wears yellow painted fingernails for the concert total look by Gucci. The skin-tight bodice features a graphic pattern in red and pale blue, which he pairs with flared trousers, which in turn quote the pattern, but on the left leg differently than the right. How the red Adidas Originals will match on his feet is hard to say, although one would probably have to search hard for footwear that harmonises with such pants.
But that is all characteristic of a style. Blouses, shirts, pants, sweaters are always too tight, too short, too wide or too long and usually correspond in color to each other in such a way that you get the impression that he just threw on what was on the chair when he got up in the morning lay on top. Even when he wore a somehow flamenco-inspired dress by Gucci on the cover of American “Vogue” in November 2020, he made a pleasantly calm impression, even if some interpreted the photo series as a further sign of the impending end of the world. Candace Owens, a cranky conservative political commentator and friend of the House of Trump, tweeted at Styles: “No society can survive without strong men. The East knows this. In the West, it is no coincidence that while our children are being taught Marx, men are constantly being feminized. This is a very clear attack.”
The tweet made no sense, of course, but you have to understand. Of course, Styles is an impertinence for Owens, as for others of her ilk who have made a business of their constant excitement about things they know little about. But he simply lets this vulgar kind of opinion pornography bounce off and demands “Treat People With Kindness”. When he sings the appropriate title, the audience suddenly rises from their chairs and, contrary to all regulations and safety precautions, makes a polonaise through the hall. Even the folders that kindness generally not understood as part of their job description, let themselves be infected by so much friendliness and shoo people back to their seats as nicely as possible.
It’s all so wonderfully disarming that it puts a beatific smile on the face of even gifted cynics. Every era deserves a beautiful utopia, and Styles’ seems to be the best pop music has to offer right now. It’s less the music than a basic attitude that characterizes Harry Styles, the way he meets people. Be nice to each other, take care of yourselves, get home safely. Feel comfortable in Harry’s house, there is room for everyone.