celeb news UPROXX: No one would call Harry Styles subversive if he looked like Ed Sheeran

[Communion]

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Harry Styles is a really nice guy. I know this because he told me himself, over and over, in his songs.

 

Take “Boyfriends,” the penultimate track from his forthcoming album, Harry’s House. Singing in a tender croon over a gentle, finger-picked guitar lick that evokes the ’70s AM gold of John Denver, Styles enumerates the many ways in which most boyfriends are bad. “They think you’re so easy,” he says. “They take you for granted / They don’t know they’re just misunderstanding you.” A few lines later, he sniffs, “You love a fool who knows just how to get under your skin.”

 

As he makes clear in the other songs on Harry’s House, Styles himself is not guilty of any of these offenses. He is the opposite of those other guys. And he’s here to be your surrogate best friend, romantic partner, and/or sensitive ally, the hunky hero who will whisper sweet nothings while the dumpy zero in your life watches sports on the couch. In the ersatz indie-pop number “Grapejuice,” he’s the hopeless romantic who admits that “I was on my way to buy some flowers for you.” In the low-key bedroom ballad “Little Freak,” he’s the sultry dreamboat who raves about “the body all that yoga gave you.” But mostly, he’s just … nice! Really, really nice! “Take a walk on Sunday through the afternoon,” he sighs moonily in “Love Of My Life.” “We can always find something for us to do.”

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“Harry Styles is a good person” is Harry Styles’ overriding artistic credo. He lays it on so thick that the performative altruism becomes oppressive, like in “Treat People With Kindness,” a particularly egregious nice-guy routine from Styles’ blockbuster second album, 2019’s Fine Line. “Maybe we can / Find a place to feel good,” he sings. “And we can treat people with kindness / Find a place to feel good.” Do I dispute the message of the song? Of course not. Nobody can. And that’s the point. It’s bulletproof brand burnishing. Finding a place to feel good … is good! It’s the equivalent of a corporation tweeting out a social-justice slogan. What it’s not is compelling art.

 

As I played Harry’s House, I kept wondering: Has Harry Styles ever been a bad boyfriend? Has he ever said the wrong thing or had an impulse that is impure, untoward, or selfish? Has he ever felt like not taking a walk through a park on a Sunday afternoon? Really, dude? A song like “Boyfriends” would seem disingenuous or even creepy if it appeared on a John Mayer record, because we know John Mayer is a flawed human being, to say the least. But to his credit, whatever else you want to say about John Mayer, he’s copped to those shortcomings in his songs. Whereas Harry Styles — the occasional, conspicuous lyrical reference to sniffing cocaine or popping “pills” aside — comes off like a life-sized Ken doll on Harry’s House. And that makes for a terribly boring listening experience.

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In a recent list of the world’s most stylish musicians, Styles was praised as “a new-school style icon in the gender-fluid footsteps of ’70s and ’80s heroes — especially David Bowie and Prince,” presumably because he wears dresses on stage, just as countless other straight male pop stars have done for a half-century. I personally wouldn’t compare him to Bowie or Prince, for a variety of reasons. He reminds me more of the monologue that opens Mary Harron’s 2000 film American Psycho, in which Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman coldly intones, “There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory.”

 

Something illusory. That, to me, sums up the fantasy version of himself that Harry Styles serves up on Harry’s House. To be clear: I am not comparing Harry Styles to a fictional serial killer in any other way! (Though injecting American Psycho into Harry’s House would definitely make it less dull.) What I am saying is that his persona, which informs how his songs are heard and discussed, is very much about presenting a facade that is divorced from reality. Yes, he is handsome and charismatic. But he is not some transgressive paradigm-shifter. He is the paradigm. If he looked like Ed Sheeran, he would have the credibility of Ed Sheeran. Because his actual music occupies the same middle-of-the-road pop lane as Ed Sheeran’s.

 

This is where the nods to genuine innovators like Prince and Bowie — both of whom were fearless about owning and exploring the thorniest parts of their lives and psyches in their songs — start to seem especially preposterous. Styles, at heart, is a pastiche artist who specializes in making soundalikes of the most broadly accepted music from the 1970s onward. This is another kind of facade, an additional distancing device that keeps you at arm’s length from a flesh-and-blood person who might have an original (or even dangerous) thought or two. What you get instead is a curator of cool signifiers. His songs always remind you of better songs.

https://uproxx.com/pop/harry-styles-harrys-house-review/

Edited May 23, 2022 by Communion

[fridayteenage]

his personality reminds me more of meghan trainor tbh

[ZIVERT]

This review is worthless when you listen to realize that Falling is about him cheating on a previous lover, shattering this illusion that Harry has never copped up to being a bad boyfriend  the writer is pressed

 

Getting real tired of this “hate on famous people because they’re attractive” trope that’s making its rounds on social media, stop projecting your own insecurities onto famous people uglies  

[Protocol]

They didn't lie. He has absolutely nothing interesting to say as an artist and doesn't know how to say uninteresting things in an interesting way either. It's all vague, banal Instagram captions. Great productions, beautiful productions. It works as a 'mood' album to play in the background.

[Protocol]

1 minute ago, ZIVERT said:

This review is worthless when you listen to realize that Falling is about him cheating on a previous lover, shattering this illusion that Harry has never copped up to being a bad boyfriend  the writer is pressed

 

Getting real tired of this “hate on famous people because they’re attractive” trope that’s making its rounds on social media, stop projecting your own insecurities onto famous people uglies  

It's hard to gleam that from the lyrics, which are so generic they sound like they were written by a corporate marketing committee

 

And he's not attractive so I'm not sure what you're going on about...?

[lovecatt]

tea

[Rev8]

The critic trying to be edgy

 

 

4 minutes ago, ZIVERT said:

This review is worthless when you listen to realize that Falling is about him cheating on a previous lover, shattering this illusion that Harry has never copped up to being a bad boyfriend  the writer is pressed

 

Getting real tired of this “hate on famous people because they’re attractive” trope that’s making its rounds on social media, stop projecting your own insecurities onto famous people uglies  

 

tbh they have Always rode one part of the wave against the artist, no wonder they didn't listen to the songs

[Rev8]

3 minutes ago, Protocol said:

It's hard to gleam that from the lyrics, which are so generic they sound like they were written by a corporate marketing committee

 

And he's not attractive so I'm not sure what you're going on about...?

The way your post screams Butt-hurt

[ZIVERT]

3 minutes ago, Protocol said:

It's hard to gleam that from the lyrics, which are so generic they sound like they were written by a corporate marketing committee

 

And he's not attractive so I'm not sure what you're going on about...?

“I'm in my bed // And you're not here // And there's no one to blame but the drink in my wandering hands”

 

what’s not to get? Maybe we need to sign you up for a remedial English course babes?

[Protocol]

Just now, Rev8 said:

The way your post screams Butt-hurt

I'm a top, my ass is just fine. Please do not project.

[ZIVERT]

3 minutes ago, Rev8 said:

The critic trying to be edgy

 

 

 

tbh they have Always rode one part of the wave against the artist, no wonder they didn't listen to the songs

The crux of this article being “Harry Styles is such a nice, attractive guy, I wish he would sing about being an ******* so I would be justified in thinking he’s one” please go to hell  

[Sugden]

This spill

[worldwide angel]

this was too harsh  

[Kimmo]

Is true, he uses the dresses and feminine image to make himself look “aware of his feminine side”… I don’t have a problem with that but, where’s the Harry that dressed up with his moms clothes as a kid? Why is he dressing in dresses now? 
 

He is using it in a way that legends like Bowie and Mike did it  … but is boring now because he’s got no essence behind it other than shock and trying to appear as a member or something that he is not.. 

[Credit]

one publication slipped out of his pr's payroll :(

[Breathe On Moi]

Oh god can we fast forward to two weeks from now when we don’t talk about Harry anymore 

[Rev8]

6 minutes ago, ZIVERT said:

The crux of this article being “Harry Styles is such a nice, attractive guy, I wish he would sing about being an ******* so I would be justified in thinking he’s one” please go to hell  

The way users who doubt everything, are already agreeing with it tho the Harry hate really begun when success hit huh

[Obsession]

I agree, he's just as boring

[Talento]

34 minutes ago, Communion said:

But he is not some transgressive paradigm-shifter. He is the paradigm. If he looked like Ed Sheeran, he would have the credibility of Ed Sheeran. Because his actual music occupies the same middle-of-the-road pop lane as Ed Sheeran’s.

Spilled 

[Carla Rosón]

Never found him attractive at all to be honest. He's way more talented than he's pleasing to the eye. Same for Ed Sheeran but he's an extreme.

[terrorblade]

he spilled I fear

[brenda-walsh]

2020's ed sheeran confirmed 

[Sugar-Rush]

I legit don't know why some folks praise him for wearing dresses as if Bowie hadn't already done the whole non-binary/androgynous thing better. 

[Mr. Peanutbutter]

I see no lies tbh

[Protocol]

7 minutes ago, Paranoid Android said:

A lot of critics have been oddly backhanded in their supposedly stellar reviews this time around. It will be absolutely brutal if he has an actual commercial misfire.

Because the productions are lovely but the lyrics are all "me and you/the sky is blue/you love me/I love you too"