"Adore You" by Harry Styles, Thursday, July 13, 2023

There are not many songs that get the promotional treatment that Harry Styles' "Adore You" received when Columbia Records released the second single from Fine Line in 2019. Before the single was released, a Twitter page title "@visitedora" appeared.  Then a website for the fictional tourist island appeared, though it wasn't advertised as a fictional location. There was no place to book a ticket and Google Maps wasn't able to find the location. 

WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? Harry Styles released a trailer for "Adore You" on December 2, 2019 and then dropped the single and music video on December 6. In the music video, Styles treats viewers to a storytelling video about a boy (played by Styles) who is rejected by the residents of the small island, Edora. The boy befriends a magical fish, saving the fish from a fish market. Along the way, the "Adore You" music video introduces viewers to a number of colorful characters who live on the gloomy island.  The experience of watching "Adore You" feels like watching a film adaptation of young adult novel you didn't read: you don't expect to get so drawn into the story, but something about it keeps you engaged. The themes of the video about feeling like an outsider and looking for love, even if it is in the form of a magical pet are well executed that viewers forget for a moment that the story is fiction. Furthermore, the moody setting of the Eroda, filmed on several Scottish islands, though far from what many of us want on a summer vacation, but by the end of the video, I'm looking at tickets to northern Scotland.

WALK IN YOUR RAINBOW PARADISE. Musically, "Adore You" blends a futuristic synth with throwback disco. It's upbeat, but it's longing due to the minor key. As Fine Line's second single, "Adore You" has a tone of introspection, although the song's upbeat nature feels a bit contradictory in the emotional arch of a break up album on a first listen. It's not a tearful track, but it is a reflection on potential one-sided love. On Fine Line, "Adore You" directly follows "Watermelon Sugar," which is a much more upbeat song and precedes "Lights Out," which is a substantially slower song. I generally think of Fine Line as a summer record, but the release of "Lights Out," "Adore You," and "Falling" in the colder months as well as the album's December make me reassess my judgement on the record. And even though "Adore You" mentions "summer skies," it feels cold. But with the rainy season in Korea, the weather reminds me of the music video, damp, sticky, but somehow a little upbeat because it's not so cold outside. So, however your summer is shaping up, revisiting the many moods of Fine Line is never a bad idea.

Live on Graham Norton:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Photograph" Ed Sheeran, Saturday, February 3, 2024 (updated repost)

Image
  Before " Shape of You ," Ed Sheeran was known primarily as a singer-songwriter. His albums + and X took clear influence from The Beatles , Carole King , Elton John , James Taylor , and the ballad writers of yesteryear. But he had a knack for throwing in a few rap bars along the way. With every record, Sheeran gained more acclaim. His sophomore record produced the mega Billboard #2 hit , " Thinking Out Loud ," which won two Grammys including Song of the Year. The final single from the album, " Photograph " was written in collaboration with Snow Patrol 's Johnny McDaid . Sheeran drew inspiration from his long distance relationship with singer/songwriter Nina Nesbitt (the featured musician on Kodaline ’s acoustic version of “Brand New Day” ). The two spent five months apart. They would eventually break up, but the song remains a gem on Sheeran's second best-selling record.  LOVING CAN HURT . "Photograph" was the song that introduced m
Read more

“Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry (reworked post), Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Image
When I was a Christian teenager, a book started circulating in my church youth group. Joshua Harris wrote about youth with wisdom and authority that seemed logical and categorical for every situation to the young women who read I Kissed Dating Goodbye . The book’s thesis argued that dating was a worldly alternative to the more purposeful Christian concept of courtship. Dating fueled erotic passions, which must be saved for a heterosexual marriage. Dating is casual, even preteens dates. Courtship was about vetting a marriage partner and would happen in the late teen years or early adulthood.  YOU THINK I'M PRETTY WITHOUT ANY MAKEUP ON .  Josh Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye was part of a movement I’ve written about a lot: purity culture. How much this movement influenced young Katy Hudson, a pastor’s daughter in Southern California, touring with a slew of Christian rockers on the heels of her debut, self-titled album , I can only speculate what went through the 17-year-old star’s
Read more

"All of Me Wants All of You" (Helado Negro Remix) by Sufjan Stevens, Sunday, February 27, 2022

Image
I've talked about how Carrie & Lowell , Sufjan Steven 's 2015 masterpiece, is a quintessential portrait of dealing with grief and forgiveness when I wrote about the first two tracks, " Death with Dignity ," and " Should Have Known Better ." By the third track on the record, " All of Me Wants All of You ," explores grief in a different way from the previous two tracks. As with most songs on the album, "All of Me" appears to be deeply personal to the artist. But being personal doesn't stop this track's language from being the most obscured with allusions to geography and possibly an allegory from a little-known Spanish play. ALL OF ME THINKS LESS OF YOU.  There's a debate   on Lyrics Genius about the meaning of this song, especially surrounding the identity of the only other character mentioned by name in this song, Manelich. Is he the one the song is about? Stevens has written vaguely about homosexual attraction throughout
Read more