Harry moves on to new musical styles…

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[5.43]Tobi Tella: Harry Styles has become one of the few fully pop event artists today, and this is effortlessly better than anything his White Boy Popstar contemporaries like Mendes and Puth could dream of. At the same time, it kind of convinces me he took the wrong lesson from his breakout albums. I want more bombastic belt-along choruses, not a combination of the slow dreariness of the debut and the occasionally listless pop production of Fine Line. I can’t wait for the chill pop craze to be conclusively dead.
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Ady Thapliyal: Fine Line’s indie funk was already regressive, but “As It Was” changes it up by painstakingly emulating a different dated indie style, MGMT-era synthpop. At least MGMT’s bright synth melodies were brilliantly original; here the main synth hook sounds like “Take On Me” wearing Groucho glasses.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: At this point, ’80s revivalism mostly just reminds me of 2014. The slightly-artsy portion of the pop mainstream — The Weeknd, Dua Lipa, now this guy — have been running their pastiches of Sky Ferreira/Dev Hynes pastiches of the 1981-1985 era so consistently over the last three years that it’s hard to distinguish any meaning in any individual sonic choice. It’s hard to distinguish anything that’s going on here — for a pop mega-hit, “As It Was” is both flimsier and more muddled than you’d expect. It’s pre-fab art-pop, a largely hookless moire of synths wrapped around a first draft of a song, and the references to “light-speed internet” and “leave America” feel like Styles skimmed a 1975 album. On his first two albums, Styles borrowed from genres rich in charismatic, relatively novel archetypes, and achieved a facsimile of depth. Here, he’s just doing the same damn thing everyone else in his lane is (more on this when we get to the new Maggie Rogers single). The only reason I don’t dislike this more is because there’s nothing here to have an opinion about.
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Al Varela: I think a lot of people expect a pop artist’s comeback single to be this big, world-defining, bombastic return to music, which is why I appreciate how unassuming “As It Was” is. It’s simply a new Harry Styles song, one that takes a lot of inspiration from jangle-pop with a running groove and catchy hook. But the song being unspectacular isn’t an indictment of its quality. If anything, “As It Was” is a refinement of his styles that further cements him as both a pop star and even a rock star. Detached, yet filled to the brim with feelings, this is a song you can run or ache to. I love how it ends with a splash of color against the bright melody and fluttering synths, bringing the song back home.
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Alex Clifton: I think Harry listened to a bunch of Mitski and “Take On Me” and decided to combine the two, to great effect. My favourite musical moment of the year so far is around 2:20 when the chimes kick in, taking “As It Was” to more grandiose heights. It’s joyous and so alive, even when the lyrics are existentially sad — beautifully bittersweet. I’m filing this under “additional proof that Harry was always the best thing to come out of One Direction.”
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Andrew Karpan: Even in this moment of ruthless interpolation-pop, Styles’ rework of “Take On Me” is a subtly moving zombie of a record that seems, at times, sentimental about its own nostalgia. “You know it’s not the same as it was,” his perfect voice cooes perfectly, almost as if to say there’s some deeper reasons why this sounds more like Passion Pit than your corner bar’s ’80s nite.
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Katherine St Asaph: I liked Harry Styles better when he was Bruno Marsing classic rock, not landfill indie.
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