Rolling Stone: Harry Styles Is a Rock God and a Gentleman on ‘Fine Line’
The English pop star makes retro-rock with a sensitive touch on his excellent second album
Though Harry Styles Superstar would have been a gloriously mad album, Fine Line is not the magical mystery tour one might have assumed the breakout One Direction heartthrob set his sights on following his classic-rock-inspired debut, Harry Styles. But it’s not him suddenly declaring, “OK, boomer,” either. Like his brilliant uniform of flowing, high-waisted trousers and shagadelic chest-baring shirts — loud retro looks hot off the Gucci runway — it’s a streamlined, party-ready, primary-colors take on the enduring concept of the rock & roll starman. It’s also as much as fun as anyone short of Bruno Mars is having with a band these days. (Especially when Styles, an irresistible flirt of a singer, gets playful like he does on heartbreaker ballad “Cherry,” dragging out the word “haaaating” from “I’m hating it” like he’s repeating a favorite line from Clueless.)
Aided by genre-fluid songwriters like Kid Harpoon, Jeff Bhasker, Greg Kurstin, and Amy Allen, Styles is also now mining some rich millennial veins as well. Busy and beachy, “Sunflower Vol. 6” could sit next to Vampire Weekend on any playlist. The title track emerges from a darkly beautiful Bon Iver-like haze into a big, semi-hopeful, brass-and-martial-drums finish; with a measure of uncertainty fitting the close of this chaotic decade, Styles promises: “We’ll be all right.”
If there’s a nontoxic masculinity, Harry Styles just might’ve found it. And that’s the kind of magic mushrooms can’t buy.
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