Harry Styles’ “Sign Of the Times”: The Good, the Bad and the Aggressively Safe
Photo by Getty Images / Eamonn M. McCormack
During his One Direction days, pop hip-swiveler Harry Styles was real a fan favorite. With untamable hair, a wide, cheeky grin and ‘70s rock leanings, he quickly garnered comparisons to The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, and, in pop’s earlier days, he could’ve been marketed as One Direction’s unofficial frontman, with the swagger to match *NSYNC’s Justin Timberlake but with a penchant for bad-boy body art, like Backstreet Boys’ naughty AJ McLean. If Styles’ story were an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, his natural arc might have dictated that he be the one to leave One Direction to pursue a solo career first.
But ZAYN — now just ZAYN, all caps — beat Harry to that solo career, and in the fallout of ZAYN-gate, it didn’t take very long for One Direction to crumble and announce a still-active hiatus. They ponied up for one more album, 2015’s Made in the A.M., and the remaining members went their separate ways, with Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson releasing their own solo singles. But now Styles is ready for his close-up, free of the Boy Band shackles, free to literally fly wherever he chooses.
That single was released today: It’s called “Sign Of the Times” (possibly a loose reference to Prince’s similarly named 1987 single/album). And like The Purple One’s socio-political lyrical references, Styles’ track also appears to circle—however vaguely—current events.