It was Father John Misty who really got us intrigued about Harry Styles’ new solo material – not a sentence we ever expected to be writing. Last month, the arch singer-songwriter responded to a question on Twitter asking who his favourite member of One Direction was with the response: “Harry’s new album is FUCKING INSANE.”
Truth be told, nobody’s really been sure what to expect from Styles – would he follow the synth-soul zeitgeist, like his former bandmate Zayn Malik? Stick to his boyband roots? Or – as industry rumours suggested tantalisingly – swerve down a road marked “David Bowie meets Queen”.
Turns out it was the latter. Debuting Sign of the Times (title all his own work) on Nick Grimshaw’s Radio 1 breakfast show, Styles has revealed his first solo single to be a bombastic slice of bombastic piano pop that builds bombastically to a bombastic ending.
