In a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Harry Styles spoke of wanting to feel “less guarded, freer, more joyful.” Based on the sun-soaked, genre-fluid sound of his sophomore solo album, Fine Line, he’s achieved his goal. Invoking the highs and lows of youth, from intoxicating sexual encounters to wrecked relationships to long nights spent dancing with friends, the album sees Styles sifting through genres like clothes in a fabulous wardrobe, trying things on for size to see what fits.
The opening track, “Golden,” is a shimmering statement of intent. Subtle, dampened piano chords give way at Styles’s signal—a single “hey!”—like a curtain pulled back, revealing a full band in all its sparkling glory. It’s a song made for long coastal drives, and it sets the tone for a series of deeply sensory tracks. Taste and touch are central to the hyper-sensual “Watermelon Sugar,” in which Styles describes a sexual encounter in terms of sweet fruits and summer nights, building to an ecstatic, horn-filled climax. And on “Adore You,” he finds himself in a “strawberry lipstick state of mind” as he imagines “brown skin and lemon over ice.”
The Technicolor world conjured in Styles’s lyrics is made all the more vivid by Fine Line’s lush production, which makes the influence of the ’60s music scene in Laurel Canyon easily traceable throughout. The somber harmonies on the gorgeous breakup track “Cherry” seem directly descended from those of Crosby, Stills & Nash, while the lush “Sunflower, Vol. 6” takes its cue as much from the 5th Dimension as it does Vampire Weekend. “Canyon Moon,” with its warm bassline, peppy handclaps, and winding, narrative lyrics, could easily fit on Paul Simon’s Graceland. In another artist’s hands, songs like these might seem derivative, but Styles carries them off as openhearted riffs on his influences.
There’s remarkable opennness, too, in the way he deals with heartbreak and loneliness. In the middle stretch of the album falls a kind of breakup triptych beginning with “Cherry,” a deeply personal track that samples ex-girlfriend Camille Rowe’s voice. “I confess I can tell that you are at your best/I’m selfish so I’m hating it,” Styles sings, coming clean about the pettiest parts of himself. Piano ballad “Falling” is equally introspective: The line “What am I now? What if I’m someone I don’t want around” is one of Fine Line’s most moving moments, while “To Be So Lonely” teeters breezily between denial and accountability. Each finds Styles looking inward, plumbing uncomfortable feelings, examining his part to play in the failure of a relationship.
Fine Line is very much a document of a 25-year-old deep in the process of figuring out not just what kind of musician he wants to be, but what kind of person. The path from cookie-cutter boy-band member to bona fide rock star is one fraught with a lot to prove both personally and publically, and yet it’s one Styles seems to be navigating with an eagerness to learn, to experience and to experiment. There’s still a ways to go before he finds a sound that’s definitively his, but he doesn’t seem to be a guy who gets hung up on self-definition.
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