At 28, Harry Styles has unlocked a new level of stardom for himself. Years ago, he regularly filled stadiums as a member of One Direction, his former boy band. This spring and summer, he’s playing them on his own. “As It Was” has become his hugest song yet, setting streaming records and topping the charts in more than two dozen countries, including 10 weeks straight in the U.S.
Because he’s a star with a largely young, female fan base, many have refused to engage with him as much more than a pretty teen idol. (I don’t need to lay out decades of music history to show how wrong of a take that is.) But he can feel the tides change in curious ways. “ ‘As It Was’ is definitely the highest volume of men that I would get stopping me to say something about it,” he notes. “That feels like a weird comment because it’s not like men was the goal. It’s just something I noticed.”
The immense love showering Styles was impossible to ignore — you see it in the faces of every fan, whether they’ve been supporting him for “one year, two years, five years, 12 years,” as he says in nearly every end-of-show thank-you speech. Along the way I heard him everywhere, even when I wasn’t trying. “As It Was” played in every cab. “Watermelon Sugar” soundtracked breakfast. “Golden” lurked quietly at a London drugstore. “Late Night Talking” blasted at a Brooklyn bar, leading one man to proclaim, “I like Harry Styles. I can admit it,” like it was a radical act of self-acceptance. - Brittany Spanos, Rolling Stone
