Itâs not like we werenât warned. Rumors had long swirled about the sound of former One Direction heartthrob Harry Stylesâ upcoming solo career taking inspiration from â70s rock staples Queen and David Bowie, and Stylesâ own fashion statements of recent years certainly telegraphed his interest in being considered part of the British rock continuum. But still, it canât help but be a little shocking to hear Harryâs solo debut âSign of the Timesâ for the first time, to hear that thudding piano intro give way to soaring guitar and dramatically sighing vocals. Itâs strangely disconcerting in how familiar it all feels.
Throughout the songâs nearly six-minute run time, the memories of British rock history shoot off like fireworks â spanning from late-period Beatles to Bowie to Listen Without Prejudice-era George Michael to Suede to Robbie Williams and even early Coldplay. It doesnât sound like a tribute to (or rip off of) any of these artists â it just sounds like someone whoâs grown up studying at the feet of all these titans and now wants to try his hand at joining their ranks. And to Stylesâ considerable credit, he basically succeeds: âSign of the Timesâ is as lighter-waving, arm-swaying, random-mate-hugging a power ballad as they come, sounding â as many have pointed out on Twitter on this somewhat apocalyptic-seeming of Fridays â like the appropriate montage soundtrack for the end of the world.
But whatever IRL timeliness the songâs strength-in-weariness lyric delivers, musically, the songâs title comes off as pretty ironic. Fact is, âSign of the Timesâ couldnât sound much less like 2017; a pop era where rock music is viewed as increasingly archaic and even the biggest bands â no shade to LCD Soundsystem â seem to be trading in their guitars for turntables, or at least some enormous synths. To hear Harryâs big return keyed to a song built around Elton John piano and George Harrison guitar slides is pretty jarring: Ten years ago, the song wouldâve felt somewhat safe, 20 years ago it wouldâve felt downright pandering, 40 years ago it wouldâve been Eric Carmenâs âAll By Myself.â But right now, it feels practically subversive.
And you know what? The rock part of it isnât even the most surprising thing. Whatâs really staggering about âSign of the Timesâ is just how goddamn British it is. Look at the paths the other One Direction members have taken since the group went on indefinite hiatus: Louis is making EDM bangers with Steve Aoki, Zayn is trying to catch a ride on Drakeâs luxury liner and Niall (Irish, not British) is making Mumford-via-âHey There Delilahâ folk-contemporary. Hell, look at 1D themselves: Their last few albums were heavily rock influenced, but took cues from Fleetwood Mac, Journey and Def Leppard â the latter a U.K. band, but one way more popular with American audiences â rather than anything proudly British.
Styles, meanwhile, practically sounds like heâs draping himself in the Union Jack and yelling âYanks Go Home.â Heâs created the perfect song for British rock fans who wish Glastonbury would go back to more traditional headliners, who wonder why 20 years after Be Here Now essentially ended the Britpop moment, nobody seems interested in picking up Oasisâ mantle. (The Gallagher brothers will probably hate it.) In the U.K. as in the U.S., the entire musical mainstream seems to be going global, and thatâs mostly a good thing, which has led to some interesting and boundary-breaking music at popâs center. But thereâs something undeniably refreshing about a huge pop/rock song with this strong a sense of its home countryâs musical history and identity â you just donât hear much of that anymore, coming from anywhere.
Itâll be fascinating to follow what radio does with this song. It doesnât sound like anything topping the charts on either side of the Atlantic, and itâs just about impossible to imagine American top 40 stations scheduling six minutes of this in between Chainsmokers and Bruno Mars jams. But less than a day into its lifespan, the song already seems to be striking a big enough chord â it rocketed to the top of the iTunes charts within hours of its middle-of-the-night U.S. release â that it might soon prove equally impossible to imagine the biggest stations ignoring it entirely. If this really is the film soundtrack to the end days, then cue the Don LaFontaine trailer voice: IN A WORLD where pop was ruled by trop-house and Ed Sheeran, ONE MAN dared to try to bring British rock back to the mainstream. Letâs sit back and see how this unfolds. - Billboard
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