Harry Styles - Fine Line (Album Review)

Quickly becoming the most successful member of One Direction, Harry Styles is back...

After the hiatus of One Direction, Harry pretty quickly set to work writing and recording with a host of producers and co-writers in a rushed but experienced way that made for an album that jumped around from glam and soft rock to britpop and power balladry, covering a lot of unexpected ground but not going deep enough in any one direction (no pun intended) for his music to stick with me in the same way that I would have hoped. What I will say for that first album, and this is a point I'll come back to, is that in spite of all the fun of his recreation of those classic rock sounds, there were songs that had an emotional impact too as the writing was consistently enjoyable, even if it too was heavily modelled from the same putty that artists like the Rolling Stones, U2 and Elton John have used over the years. It's not original, but you can tell Harry's having fun and that rubs off on you listening to it so as under established as these songs are, at least you can enjoy listening to them.

So, after messing around with retro guitar sounds and stylings on his debut and airing out all his grievings of past relationships and his time in 1D, it was time for him to move. He's had his quarter life crisis, and now he's ready to move onto some sensible, safe pop trap... except, he didn't. Okay then, perhaps he's doubled down on all that classic rock and honed into the sound that fits him best - probably the soft rock balladry of "Sign of the Times" and "Only Angel" if I'm being honest, though they weren't my favourites from that album. In fact, he's gone in neither of these predictable directions, but instead made a pivot towards the pop-soul and pop-rock of the 70s, a move I don't think anyone expected but one I was incredibly intrigued by.

What does this move yield? Well, it's a much more tonally consistent piece, a clear result of the more focused time he's spent in the process of writing an album, and displaying a higher level of craftsmanship. There's a lot more care to develop the sound, and although he's gone out and said the purpose was to make a more fun and lighthearted release, likely due to him moving on from the burden of topics on his debut, but in actual fact Fine Line comes across much more as a serious and matured release, not least because of the newfound consistency in his sound. It's very evident from the bright horns and upbeat attitude of a track like "Watermelon Sugar" that indeed Harry wants to have fun, but very telling when in the same song it's his own pained vocal delivery that gives away the downbeat reality that comes to fruition on the standout ballad "Falling", easily one of the album highlights. Harry isn't depressed, but his melodramatic tendencies leave him exaggerating the dissatisfaction with being deprived of his lover.

There's nothing distinctly wrong with wearing your influences on your sleeve, as Harry does with Fleetwood Mac on this album, recreating lots of similar textures and going for this lush, intimate-but-five-feet-apart mix that does compliment the tone of the album very well. He's close to his lover/s, but they're just out of reach all too often, and that tension caused by a lack of connection is the fuel for the writing of both the music and lyrics on this album. Unfortunately, some of the details (that are genuinely there, I promise you) are getting lost in the haze of this mix. Now, with multiple producers it's hard to know who to blame for this... but given that this same problem seems to keep popping up on every album this man produces then I think we know exactly who to blame (*cough* Greg Kurstin *cough*). Or so I assumed. In actual fact, he only produces one song from the album, the uncomfortable and out of place redundancy that is "Sunflower, Vol. 6", the obvious worst song from the album. No, the producer we actually need to blame is Tyler Johnson, the man responsible for some of the most middle of the road pop and pop-rock of the decade (from Sam Smith to Ed Sheeran and Pink). Of course he's going to overblow aspects of the production, he lacks the experience of someone working with the intricacies present on this album.

The instrumentals do have some depth to them, even just as replicas of previous songs from previous bands, but the production seems to squash it down to the same level in a display of very unfortunate compression. This doesn't ruin the album however, and if anything it has probably helped to sell it to the desired pop audience by giving them something they're used to. On the subject of unfortunate familiarities, there are a couple of tracks (Lights Up; Sunflower, Vol.6) that feature some wonderfully clunky R&B flavoured beats that, in the case of the former only detract a little from a really great slice of pop-soul and in the case of the latter act as the underwhelming foundation for a track banking on being weird as its selling point but instead achieving a muddle of kids show sounding folk that is regrettably continued on the Vampire Weekend reminiscent "Canyon Moon", a song that commits a deadly sin in my books: whistling without irony or justified intent, [shudders] a crime I tell you, a crime.

Around this point in the album, after the instrumental climax of "She" and before the retribution of the grandiosity of the title track "Fine Line", the album loses a lot of the personality and lyrical substance of the first half in place of this child-friendly faux-hipster hippie writing and delivery that really doesn't work for Harry. It comes across as shallow and disingenuous, something that even on the weaker moments of writing that the debut album displayed wasn't ever as prominent an issue as here. It's not even a one-two punch, but three whole songs that fall into this category. This is some low-quality stuff, and I find very little in the way of redeeming qualities on these unapologetically uninformative tracks. It isn't just that there's less in terms of substance, but there's a noticeable lack of effort put into these songs and it's a pretty notable decline that I can't overlook. If this is what he meant when he said the album was going for fun, then I have to disagree - stupid does not equate to fun.

To sum everything up, whilst I do enjoy the tone of the album Harry spends too much time coasting on safe, pleasant melodies that are only sometimes elevated enough by the production to be interesting. It's easy to enjoy, but harder to appreciate given how bland some moments are due to undistinguished textures and detail. The songwriting hasn't necessarily improved from the last album, but it's moved onto a different and more focused approach that harkens back to the style of the artists he's emulating and bingo! There's our problem. Harry Styles lacks style or, more accurately, his own style. Plenty of artists have accomplished what he's doing, pulling from older styles of music but presenting it in their own way and it's just a shame that he isn't really able to do that yet. Given his public personality, I presumed this would come naturally but upon recalling his acting in Dunkirk I suppose that it makes sense that this is what he struggles with. It's clear to see that since 1D he's been having an identity crisis in terms of where to take his music, and arguing the case of the consistency of Fine Line is being fooled by the sheen handed to us - Harry hasn't figured things out. Don't get me wrong, he's closer, but not there yet. 

In conclusion, Fine Line is a significant improvement over Harry Styles, but it feels like whilst the writing, instrumental depth, performance and presentation has all improved but only in some places. On many occasions, they've improved, but on other occasions they've degraded. It's another mixed album, perhaps more mixed when comparing the best and the worst songs, but it's getting a higher rating than what I'd have given the debut. Decent to strong 6 out of 10, if you're a fan of Harry you've already heard it and are probably more than a little frustrated with this review. If not and you're looking for a throwback sound or some Fleetwood nostalgia then I recommend it to you.

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"Fine Line"

Harry Styles

13th December 2019

Columbia

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