Harry Styles through the years

By: Sofia Gaitan

“It'd be so sweet if things just stayed the same,” Harry Styles sings in “Lights Up”.

Harry Edward Styles is a British singer, songwriter, actor and recently a Grammy award winner, who has impacted the music industry with his two albums. Before becoming a solo artist, he was part of the boy group One Direction, formed by Simon Cowell in 2o10 after the British reality TV competition X-Factor.

The band became an instant sensation, but ultimately parted ways in August 2015. Styles is putting his solo work on full display and is outshining the rest of his former bandmates. Up All Night-2011 Four- 2014

Four is the last album One Direction made all together as a band, which pushed away from their usual bubblegum pop songs and boyish teens, and moved toward manhood. It tries something new like pop rock meets folk, showing what the members are capable of in terms of songwriting and found which voice fits more to the songs.

Up All Night is One Direction’s debut album, where Styles’ voice is heard alongside his bandmates. Their most known song “What Makes You Beautiful,” has the 17-year-old Styles crooning about being mesmerized by a girl who doesn’t know her own beauty.

This album has classic boy band sounds and is comparable to classics like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. Harry Styles- 2017

Harry Styles is Style’s solo debut album, which breaks away from One Direction’s sound. It displays more of Styles as the artist, rather than Styles from One Direction.

He also has complete creative freedom compared when he was with One Direction, where management had complete creative control. The lead single “Sign of the Time” serves as a soft rock ballad. It is beautifully written and gives raw emotion. It shows how much passion he has toward his art. This album also gives fun songs like “Kiwi”, “Carolina”, “Woman”, “Only Angel”.

These songs make your heart ache in the best way possible and want to get up and dance and literally want to make you go pursue a modeling career because of the adrenaline rush and confidence you get from listening to “Kiwi”, “Carolina”, and “Only Angel”. Songs like “Two Ghosts”, “Ever Since New York”, and “Sweet Creature” make you stare at the ceiling for five hours and rethink your entire life.

Then songs like “Meet Me in the Hallway” and “From the Dining Table” make you cry in a cool way. It’s open and vulnerable but also safe and even going out of his comfort zone to write this album. For it being his debut album his work is immaculate it takes the person into a different world. Fine Line-2019

Fine Line is Styles’ sophomore album. This album is just hands down the best album to come out in 2019. He really outdid himself on this album. There are no skips on this album. Every song is an instant classic and something that you could listen to over and over again and never get tired of.

The title of the album “Fine Line” means trying to find the fine line between being content and thriving for more, between happy and sad and all of the other things life throws towards your way. It shows a new side to Styles, especially in the song “Lights Up”, which is about self-acceptance and being open with one’s self. “Golden” is one of the best album openers. “Fine Line” is a perfect closing song. In fact, there simply couldn’t be a better way to close the album.

It was taken on a journey after going through everything on the album and “Fine Line” kind of just wrapped it up and said, “Yeah all this stuff happened to me but it's going to be okay. I'm growing and learning.” That's why the orchestra build throughout the last few minutes is just beautiful, giving an optimistic view of the future. It's like an epic ending to a movie.

Harry Styles at three different points in time.