Hi hi, I'm the biggest fan of your fics (most recently On Open Wings <3) + drarry recs. I'm also 1D af -- I was wondering how you're feeling about Harry's first album a few months in?
Tysm anon, that’s wonderful to hear 💗💗💗
I am feeling…complicated, a few months in. I continue to really really like the 60% of songs that have some of my fave trademarks of Harry’s songwriting - the imagery, the musicality, the combination of emotional specificity and universality, the second person/gender-neutral pronouns, the degree to which the music evokes a place and a mood. “From the Dining Table,” “Meet Me in the Hallway,” and “Ever Since New York” are all resonant, moving songs I really enjoy listening to and find genuinely affecting.
On the other hand, there are some songs that I still can’t listen to. Not in a “making a political point” way, but in a way that’s happened for me with other artists as well, wherein the way race and gender and sexuality play out in a song make it genuinely hard for me to enjoy. I really want to be able to sing along joyfully and exuberantly to the bops and jams - but when it comes to saying the words, there’s just no universe in which I can sing “Told it to her brother and she told it to me/That she’s gonna be an angel, just you wait and see/When it turns out she’s a devil in between the sheets/and there’s nothing she can do about it” or “couldn’t take her home to mother in a skirt that short” or “she’s a good girl, she’s such a good girl” without feeling a bit gross. Ditto all of Kiwi and all of Woman (which sounds to me like the auditory equivalent of watching an offensively stereotypical lifetime/law-and-order-type depiction of a fight in a trailer park. “*grunt.* WOMAN.”) All of Carolina, too - the story there really made me sad, to think that Harry could be so inconsiderate of a woman’s privacy and emotional life (and/or that his team though that young women would find that idea appealing). And again: I would love to enjoy these songs. But I’ve had the experience over and over again of listening to Kiwi and actively trying to get into it - as someone pointed out to me, speeding down the highway screaming “IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” should be so so so fun!! - and then just petering out on the rest. Getting viscerally sad and bummed out and disappointed.
In practice? I listen to it sometimes. I skip a lot of songs. My copy of the special edition of the album is still sitting in the unopened shipping box on top of a bookshelf. I looked into returning it and couldn’t get an answer from sandbag (which, it sounds like they’ve been a mess across the board and I’m bummed that Louis is using them too to the point that I may not order the physical single bc I’m moving house and, given the delay on HS1, don’t trust that it will get here before I do) so I haven’t sent it back. But I haven’t been able to bring myself to open it, either, and I don’t have the same urge to hang Harry pics in my wardrobe that I did when I ordered the lithographs. I haven’t watched carpool karaoke or the apple music documentary. And if I’m honest, I’m just sad about the album, and disappointed.
That said: I’m sad and disappointed because I think Harry is incredibly talented, and capable of much more than we saw on this album. I believe that he’s a very talented songwriter and I love his voice and I love the way he approaches so many things. I also really appreciate how he and his team responded to fans’ negative reactions to the misogyny in his lyrics and in the first day of his late late appearance. (Watching those gifs of him rolling his eyes at the idea that Kendall wanted to have sex too much still turns my stomach and makes me so sad.) I am glad that they’ve stayed away from that image since and hope they’re thinking seriously about why that reaction happened and what fans had to say. I’ve seen a few blogs suggest that Kiwi or Carolina would’ve been a much better and more popular/commercially successful single than Two Ghosts will be, and I think that’s true, and if their choice of Two Ghosts is about being responsive to the wave of people telling them that those depictions are wholly unacceptable, I’m glad of it and appreciate that thoughtfulness. And I’m REALLY proud of the fandom for speaking up and saying that it wasn’t okay! Really, really proud of the fandom for that, for saying “we insist on seeing women depicted as humans and no matter how much we love you, we won’t accept sex-shaming and we won’t accept sexist tropes, we know you can do better and we believe in that and in you and that’s why we’re here, and we can stand behind you and insist that you hear us.” So, so glad of and proud of that response.
So. I’m hoping, as Sheena has suggested, that there might be an extended version of the album at the holidays/before the arena tour with a few more tracks, and I’d be excited to hear those and open to loving them. Because, again, I think Harry is very, very talented and has tremendous promise. He’s shown that he can write incredible lyrics. He’s shown that he can write absolute bangers. If he shows us he’s able to do both of those at the same time, I will be absolutely over the moon - and I absolutely think that he’s capable of that. I hope it’s on the way. In the meantime: sad, disappointed, appreciative, and hopeful. Complicated.