The Singles Jukebox

It’s Songs-English-Lads-Haven’t-Done-A-Proper-Video-For-Yet Thursday!

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[6.58]

Edward Okulicz: Harry Styles is embarrassing. His tattoos and social media posts inspire me to shake my head at how silly he is. But he’s got fans who worship his choices as much as his face; he’s a pop star, and being a good pop star often means being polarising and different things to different people. His solo debut’s absurd scale is matched by its overreaching lyrics and on-brand earnestness, recognisably the work of an idiot who got a butterfly tattoo on his stomach and who once plaintively asked his listeners, “is it too much to ask for something great?“. The world needs Harry Styles to be the great pop star that he almost is; I’ll upgrade this to a [9] if he has a second song this massive, and to a [10] if he quits music after this goes to Number One.
[8]

Alfred Soto: It took no time for this elegant pony to record a solo debut as long and ugly as his hair. Signifying nothing but its power to impress with its “range,” his falsetto depends on its cushioning among other weaker voices, none of which are present here. “Epic” is not a compliment but a value-free descriptor. 
[4]

Will Adams: When I was a young, budding music lover, I somehow got it in my head that songs could only be good if they were longer than 3:50. At 5:41, “Sign of the Times” is not only a baffling single choice, it’s an extension of Younger Me’s short-sighted thinking. I don’t begrudge the slow tempo, but the unnecessary repetition of the pre-chorus and Styles’ stubborn inability to cut around anything make it a slog. The turgid 70s rock-isms don’t help, nor does Styles’ following the trend of most of his former bandmates that serious = good.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: The timing of a David Bowie pastiche invoking a Prince album would seem incredibly crass had Styles not set himself up for this ever since he started wearing fedoras and soutache and Johnny Depp hair. Is it terrible to give points just for ambition? Even though this is basically just a Jason Mraz ballad blown up Violet Beauregarde-style(s) to arena size, or a warning shot for Styles’ impending Bruno Marsification of classic rock?
[6]

Katie Gill: Zayn is mystery, Zayn is the sexy one, so he releases “Pillowtalk.” Niall is light, Niall is the cute one, so he releases “This Town.” Harry is love, Harry is the hot one, so he releases… a six minute slightly prog, slightly glam, utterly flamboyant arena rock jam that pushes the song all the way up to eleven. And yet it’s a bit to be expected? I’ve got an entire essay on how Harry Styles pushes back against the cult of masculinity through exceedingly specific style choices, much in the vein of Prince, who ALSO has his Sign o’ the Times, and it’s not a coincidence Harry announced this single the day of that album’s anniversary. Likewise, masculinity through style, brings to mind David Bowie, the person who everybody’s going to be comparing this song to. By the way, I fall more towards “Life on Mars” on the Which David Bowie Song Does This Actually Remind You Of Spectrum. “Sign of the Times” is unexpected but entirely expected and I just really love it and want to listen to it over and over again, okay?
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: Not the Robbie, but the Briyan, only ten times as pompous. A thuddingly un-self-aware debut full of elliptical platitudes that may well have meant a lot when written, but land like helium balloons. Off they float into the ether, ground control to rocket man and all that, but wait — the luxuriously leaden arrangement brings him right back down. It all feels shockingly misguided: he’s reached Be Here Now on single one.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: When I heard that Harry Styles was releasing a glam-rock production from Jeff Bhasker, I was expecting “We Are Young” part II. Instead, it’s artsy, dramatic, and really, really serious. It’s a bit too long and overblown (towards the end becoming what I imagine Be Here Now to sound like, should I ever want to hear it in full), but “Sign of the Times” nonetheless represents a shift in style that works quite well. And if the idea was to attract fans of Springsteen, Joel, and Bowie, that worked well too – my dad’s a fan of this song, and didn’t even care about Styles’ origins. 
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Songs I hear in the DNA of “Sign of the Times”: Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” Elton John’s “This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore,” Bowie’s “5 Years,” Suede’s “Wild Ones.” And if you told me that Noel Gallagher was playing uncredited slide guitar, it wouldn’t shock me at all. This song is sloooooow, and dramatic, and defiantly off-trend, which is a big part of why it succeeds so strongly: it sounds nothing like anything anywhere near the radio right now. It’s also triumphantly British, and grand, and Styles gives it the strongest vocal I’ve yet heard from him. This is the epitome of a boy-band makeover, only in the most unexpected manner he could’ve taken. Everything about this is great.
[9]

Ryo Miyauchi: Harry Styles tries hard to make this say something by borrowing the markers of classic-pop greatness, but it never materializes into anything in particular. Weirdly, I admire this inflated, hollow brand of pop ambition, partly because I expected it the least out of Harry as far as solo One Direction singles go. There’s something about feeling some kind of awe looking at this huge piece of meaningful nothingness. I can’t put a finger on what exactly that something is either.
[4]

William John: Somehow the rock opera touchstones, presumably intended to gussy up this naked dolor, only serve to enhance it; there’s a sense of hopelessness, of eyeliner gushing, of feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of everything. “Sign of the Times” could do with a key change or middle eight, but its steadfast commitments to melodrama and aesthetic provide a commendable contrast to what’s currently festering at the top of the charts.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: His stiff-upper-lip, sleeve-rolling attitude implies that in another decade, this kid will start spouting neo-con nonsense once success and worth has landed at his feet. And I’m very here for that future disappointment! Am I thrilled to be entertained by a fairly boring rock ballad,complete with sliding guitars and cheap choirs? No, but, as people persist in pretending Zayn is making music worth listening to, we have to recognize that there’s dignity in realising you cannot go where the ‘new’ occurs, that you’re perhaps a little out of step and will never be much more. Harry Styles, who was once in a group of boys who tried to make life so sunny, is telling us that death and destruction are not so bad. “Sign Of The Times” doesn’t sound like much to seize upon, but it speaks to an inability to help that, more and more, plagues us all.
[6]

Claire Biddles: I live in Glasgow, around 50 miles from the UK’s stash of nuclear submarines on the west coast of Scotland. Glasgow parties hard and spends all its money on clothes and going out and dancing, and I’ve always thought this is something to do with having the possibility of being blown off the surface of the earth at a moment’s notice woven into our consciousness. There’s a low-level anxiety there, but there’s also a drive to make the most of it, and a kind of relief: at least it’ll be quick. We’ll be the ones who die at the start of Threads, not the ones left behind eating our neighbours’ limbs or whatever. Harry Styles’ debut single isn’t explicitly about the west coast of Scotland’s very specific regional psyche, but it embodies it almost perfectly. “Sign of the Times” is the announcement of the inevitable end of the world set to the tune of “Life on Mars?”, delivered louchely with a shrug, advising you to wear your Sunday best for the grand finale. Low-level anxiety, but mainly an eagerness to set a blanket down and watch it all burn, knowing you’ve done alright with the time you’ve had. It’s a final blowout that’s realistic rather than blindly hedonistic, and its excesses are rooted in the familiar — it understands that we’d rather go out to a big sing-a-long than “Idioteque“. I can only hope that in the moments between hearing the initial screams that signal my imminent death and my final, choked breath, I have enough time (an ambitious but ultimately necessary 5 minutes and 40 seconds) to listen to “Sign of the Times”; to let its reassuring but solemn take on the apocalypse ease me to the end. For dramatic effect I hope it’s on a beach, looking out to sea like Harry on the single cover. I hope I get to see the scorched sky masquerading as a sunset, a soothing, simple pleasure in my final moments. “Stop your crying”, Harry will say as he takes my hand in his — chastely, appropriately, with his knowing crooked smile — “It’ll be alright”.
[10]