12th May: The Anniversary of Harry Styles' Self Titled Album

Harry Styles. The man of the moment. With his heavily anticipated third album, Harry’s House, being announced for a release date of May 20th, everyone seems to have their eyes on Harry. Even though he’s been on the scene since 2010, auditioning for the X-Factor UK at 16 years old and being part of the quintessential boyband of the decade, he has lived in the spotlight. Many were quick to label him as a basic boyband member, but the fans knew he had something special.

Harry’s solo career began in a very different way than we all thought it would. The first project he did was not actually music, but a movie, and quite a serious one at that. Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan was a multi-starrer, and Harry Styles was only in five minutes of the movie (as fans compiled videos on Youtube will confirm). Yet, he garnered the attention of movie directors in Hollywood, with him being approached for playing the role of Eric in The Little Mermaid’s live-action remake, and then Chloe Zhao’s iconic pitch to cast him as Eros in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We will be seeing more of him in future Eternals movies, with rumours of Kevin Feige offering Harry a solo Eros movie within his 5-movie Marvel contract.

We also have Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling due to be released on September 23rd this year. The trailer had everyone shocked, and it remains one of the most anticipated movies of 2022, where Harry will be supporting lead actress Florence Pugh as they portray a married couple in the 50s. However, fans seem to be even more excited for My Policeman, based on the book by Bethan Roberts about homosexuality in the 50s. Harry is portraying the titular character, Tom Burgess, a closeted gay policeman in love with a much older man, Patrick, but forced to marry a woman due to the anti-homosexual laws, violence and societal stigma of the time. A large part of the crew is part of the LGBTQIA+ community, which makes the project special for many. The movie will make it to Amazon Prime before the end of the year.

The general public might be going gaga for Harry’s acting roles, the release of Harry’s House and the first single, As It Was, along with a very sought-after interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, but the hardcore fans had their attention somewhere else for the day of 12th May. It was this day in 2017 when Harry Styles finally blessed us with his debut album with a cover of him shirtless and wet in what looks like pink milk. The album shocked many, with the sound being distinctly different from not only his boyband days but from anything else on the market at the time, too. The world had already been blessed with lead single Sign of the Times a month earlier, and had had a listen to Sweet Creature, Ever Since New York and Kiwi, but the album in its entirety was a religious experience.

offered a very melancholy yet desperate opening in Meet Me In The Hallway, which referenced the use of addictive substances, a dark topic we hadn’t heard from Styles before. Sign of the Times was still the six-minute rock ballad that took our breaths away, yet Carolina almost immediately had us grooving and dancing, singing along to the “la la la la”s before we even knew what hit us. Two Ghosts broke our hearts yet made many wonder if it referenced a certain famous ex-girlfriend, which he neither confirmed nor denied (he’s notorious for such non-answers). Sweet Creature felt incredibly soft, romantic, and gentle, reminiscent of Harry’s songwriting on If I Could Fly, a song written for and performed by One Direction on their album, Made In The AM.

The album took a complete 180 with the arrival of Only Angel. Loud rock, big drums, bold energy, the song had it all. Kiwi followed suit and took it even further with the iconic screams and yells by Styles himself in the bridge, so much so that the next track, Ever Since New York, gave us whiplash. The number may be criticised for being repetitive in the lyrics by some, but if you really listen, you will find gut-wrenching emotion. It is speculated that the song was written about his stepfather, Robin Twist’s cancer diagnosis, from which he passed only a month after this album was out in the world.

The album’s ninth track, Woman, elicited a “What is that?!” from everyone who heard it. That was in fact, Harry himself quacking like a “sexually frustrated duck”, as described by Rolling Stones magazine. It has remained a favourite of Styles himself as he played it on his second tour and both nights of Coachella. It features a stunning guitar solo by Mitchell Rowland, Harry’s guitarist and best friend who has also written on almost every track Styles has put out to date. Harry Styles ends with a sombre note, again taking a different turn on From The Dining Table. It’s stripped-back, desperate, and even needy, providing closure to the 10-track journey.

Styles also performed two unreleased tracks meant for this album on his tour in 2018, among which Medicine is extremely popular. The recently leaked studio versions of the unheard, unreleased tracks from Harry Styles sent fans into a frenzy, and back into their nostalgia for the HS1 era. The fifth anniversary saw fans on Twitter crying along to their favourite songs, remembering their first times listening to them, and thinking of how far he has come. For many of the original stans, self-titled will always be their comfort album, no matter what happens on Harry’s House. Styles claims that this is the happiest he’s ever been while making music, and yet As It Was is incredibly haunting when you sit down and listen to it. Will we finally get a happy album from him? We’ll find out on May 20th