Mirrorballs and meteorites at the Brits

The world seems on the brink of another World War, so what better time to write about Harry Styles? I’ve watched a few performances from the Brits this week, and I cannot stop thinking about Harry and Rosalía. Both performed, but only one artist felt electrifying to me. Why? Let’s explore.

When I first started this blog I was thinking about how increasingly common it is for art to be derivative. All art borrows of course, but in our current information-saturated reality, it’s virtually impossible for artists to hide their sources or build upon them in truly novel ways. I guess in late stage capitalism we’ve essentially produced too much of everything and nothing can ever feel new. So when an artist comes along that does something singular it feels earth-shattering. That’s what Rosalía’s LUX was/is/will be for me — like a meteor to the brain upon every listen. How Rosalía makes me feel is how I imagine David Bowie felt about Lorde when he said she was “the future of music.”

Harry Styles has always been intriguing to me because he’s so indefinable: the charming lost boy pop idol searching for his artistic identity in the public eye. He’s a mirrrorball so busy sparkling that we look away, dazzled, before we can find out if there’s anything substantial beyond the glow. Each of his solo albums have felt more like experiments in self discovery than cohesive pieces of art. I don’t say this to criticise, I really like a lot of Harry songs — Sign of the Times, As it Was, Fine Line — there’s clear progression through his discography like he’s genuinely searching for the kind of artist he aspires to be. He’s not doing it just because One Direction’s global fandom means he can.

In Harry’s Zane Lowe interview this week, they began by discussing a Brian Eno quote about how all art is born from an attempt to define one’s own taste — of asking the question, ‘what do I like?’ And then trying to recreate it. That’s exactly what his first 3 albums felt like, peaking with his Grammy-winning Harry’s House in 2023. Harry in his As it Was era still felt a little derivative, but it’s the closest he’s got to being a meteorite (for me at least). He was irreverant and unpredictable and fun. I guess the success messed him up because he took some time off afterward — hung out in cafes in Rome and night clubs in Berlin. Shaved his head. Ran marathons in tiny shorts. Tried to be ordinary.

In his new era it seems Harry wanted to step away from the quest-like quality of his first three albums and become a ‘serious artist’. It’s like he’s trying to buy into his own mythology but can’t quite commit because of his characteristic (read: British) self deprecation. His stage persona seems to have lost some of its fun and spark. His irreverence suddenly feels too studied and self aware to be real. It’s like he’s watching himself perform from a great height.

Can a mirrorball become meteor… is such a transformation even possible? I think so, but it requires a different approach to art-making — from outside-in to inside-out. Taylor managed it with Folklore, Evermore and TTPD, but in all 3 of those album an inside-out process was essentially forced upon her by circumstance.

For me, the defining emotion of this new Harry era (and his Brits performance) is ‘bemusement’. I said to my husband the other day that it’s almost as if As it Was Harry Styles has been swapped out for another Harry from an alternate reality. The new Harry Styles has spent his life working a desk job for some nameless insurance company in a grey London office. Even his facial hair is uncertain. When Harry took the stage at the Brits to perform his new single Aperture he did everything right — nailed the choreo and the vocals and the facial expressions — but when it was over you could almost see the thoughts playing across his face. “Did it work? Did I pull it off? Do they believe me? Do I believe myself?”

I really respect artists who reinvent themselves, but this personality transplant seems extreme.

I’ve listened to his new album four times today and this sense of bemusement infuses the whole project. My favourite song sonically is Pop, which includes the lyrics,

Am I in over my head?
This could go anywhere
I do it, do it again
It's meant to be pop

Harry allegedly spends quite a lot of time at the infamous and notoriously exclusive techno club in Berlin called Berghain. I wonder if he went there searching for answers to the riddle of his life during his year off. I wonder if he found a kind of peace on the dance floor and sought to re-create it with this album. I wonder if he convinced himself that the pivot was about stepping into his true identity as an artist, when in actual fact he’d just found a new genre within which to continue doing what he’s always done: absorb and reflect. Critics are saying KatT,DO is sonically experimental but emotionally vague. They’re acting like this is some new conundrum — but isn’t confusion Harry Styles’ defining quality? He’s always searching but never finding. It’s an artistically valid pursuit. The issue seems to be that he expects more of himself.

Rosalía’s LUX is also about fame, scrutiny, exposure, and identity. It’s also inspired by electronic music and the techno/dance scene. Berghain is the name of the lead single. Both artists clearly went to the same place looking for answers, but Rosalía created LUX to articulate her revelations, while Harry created Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally to ponder his lack of them.

I fit in the world
And the world fits in me
I occupy the world
And the world occupies me
I fit in a haiku
And a haiku occupies a country
A country fits in a splinter
A splinter occupies the entire galaxy
The entire galaxy fits in a drop of saliva
A drop of saliva occupies Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue fits in a piercing
A piercing occupies a pyramid
And a pyramid fits in a glass of milk
And a glass of milk occupies an army
And an army fits inside a golf ball
And a golf ball occupies the Titanic
The Titanic fits in a lipstick
A lipstick occupies the sky
The sky is the thorn
A thorn occupies a continent
And a continent does not fit in Him
But He fits in my chest
And my chest occupied His love
And in His love I want to lose myself

— an English translation of Rosalía’s La Yugular (The Jugular) from LUX

If aliens arrived on earth and went to Berghain, I don’t think the dance floor would help them make sense of humanity and the messed up world we’ve created. I think it would leave them with more questions than answers. But if you showed them one human dancing in that seething mass of bodies and lights and sound and said, “that person is using this experience to try to make sense of their momentous and yet insignificant existence within this messed up world.” I feel like the alien would get it.

So this is my thesis. Mirrorballs raise questions. Meteorites provide their own answers. Both are valid and can lead to great works. I just think a mirrorball trying to be a meteorite feels a little bit awkward.