“Golden” by Harry Styles + Fine Line Track by Track, Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Today we finally do it. We look at Harry Styles' Fine Line track by track. So far, I've published three posts about Styles' 2019 record. This record set expectations high for last year's Harry's House, which has a higher Meta Critic rating but has also been criticized for its bi-polar nature between the beginning and ending of the record. I think that the dynamics on Fine Line are more evenly dispersed. To compare the two albums, I was surprised by the catchiness  and musicality of Fine Line, beginning my listening experience with Styles both unaware of his previous album and One Direction career and heavily biased against the former boy band singer--I've come around to both his eponymous record and One Direction career. Listening to Harry's House, however, I brought my expectation from listening to Fine Line, but felt disappointed by the derivative sounds that the artist often used in One Direction. Keeping that in mind, let's appreciate Fine Line and dig into Harry's House another day.

1. "Golden" kicks off the record with momentum. Blending '60s Doo-wop harmonies with late '90s guitar-styled adult alternative rock production, the song touches lyrically on the ideas in Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

2. "Watermelon Sugar" ingeniously weaves a sexual innuendo in a family-friendly sounding song that anyone can enjoy.

3. "Adore You" had an incredible promotional budget. It's a song I should talk about at some point because Styles and his team engaged in world-building to create the fictitious island of Eroda (Adore backwards). Coupled with the song's music video which feels like a film adaptation of  a children's book, the song feels like only connected to the rest of the album because of its fruit references, i.e. "cherry lipstick state of mind."

4. "Lights Up" feels like a gospel turn on the record. The song was the first promotional and radio single from the album. The single's release on National Coming Out Day in 2019 had fans speculating about Harry Styles' message in the song and video. The video shows Styles shirtless with women and men, and feels a bit like a precursor to "Watermelon Sugar."

5. "Cherry" is another fruit reference on the orally-fixated album. From track four, we start to enter a bit of non-stand-out tracks that are fun in the context of the album, but not particularly stand out otherwise. The summertime sounds of Appalachian picking coupled partially distracts from the fact that "Cherry" is a break up song, though recalling some of the tender moments between Styles and his ex-, American/French model Camille Rowe. Styles has said that the break up with Rowe inspired the album Fine Line. Her voice is sampled at the end of "Cherry."

6. "Falling" furthers the break-up theme of the album. It's the album's piano ballad and feels quite different from the often psychedelic instrumentation throughout the record. The video reinforces the imagery of the singer being alone with his thoughts in hotel rooms, as he feels like he is drowning in his sorrow. 

7. "To Be So Lonely" brings the folk sound back to the album. 

8. "She" is a rare example of an extended guitar solo on a modern pop record.  The six-minute track has Styles singing the blues about his lost relationship. "She" lives on only in his daydreams. 

9. "Sunflower, Vol. 6" brings the summer-mood back to the album. The late-summer flower imagery couples with the sticky feeling and trying to feel clean with "toothpaste." Styles said of the song that he wanted the track to be a "deep cut" from the album, and encouraged listeners to listen to the album as a whole. Indeed, listening to "Sunflower" is a highlight, but its even better in the context of the whole record.

10. "Canyon Moon" brings back the Appalachian sound. Styles called the track "Crosby, Stills, and Nash on steroids." The song refers to Laurel Canyon in Los Angelos and references the music scene from the '60s and '70s. 

11. "Treat People with Kindness" brings the album back to its high. It's a '7os hippie track that feels like it could have been a remastered recording from that era. It also feels like an Old Navy commercial. 

12. "Fine Line" is a slow burn. The final track on the record is the longest on the album. Styles gets to say everything else as the relationship escapes into the ether. It's a classic closing track that meditates on its subject with the repeated phrase, "We'll be a fine line" and a musical crescendo--horns and guitar. I skipped this track most of the time when listening to the record because I don't think of this album as a depressing thinker like a Tyson Motsenbocker record. Styles' vocal tones are a bit hard to swallow on this track, but the instrumentation at the end is a pay off.