For so many erstwhile boybanders, leaving behind the world of screaming fans, dance moves and co-ordinated chinos promises a chance to be taken - and to take themselves - very seriously indeed.
Look at Robbie Williams, who swapped his role as Take That’s court jester to croon his way through power ballads like Angels and She’s The One and release an album of big band covers. Or perhaps Justin Timberlake’s extremely self-righteous video to Cry Me A River. Even Charlie from Busted thought his band’s pop-punk hits weren’t serious enough, ditching the group to record with the more alternative Fightstar.
Zayn Malik, who became the first member of One Direction to jump ship back in 2015, breaking millions of fragile hearts in the process, certainly seemed to follow that well-trodden route: signing his first solo record contract just a few months after leaving the band, he vowed to “make real music” and “show you who I really am.”
His former bandmate Harry Styles, though, seems to have taken the exact opposite approach to solo stardom. Since the release of his debut single Sign Of The Times back in 2017, Styles has shown that you don’t need to lose your sense of fun to be taken seriously as a musician.
The new video for his latest track, Golden, is joyous proof of just that. Filmed in Italy over the summer, it’s essentially an excuse for Styles to run around the Amalfi Coast (on foot and in a retro-looking convertible) in a series of incredible outfits: a pastel green suit jacket with a pair of crochet driving gloves, floral palazzo pants and, inexplicably, a bright yellow sou’wester. There’s even a bit where he appears to have stolen Colin Firth’s Pride and Prejudice shirt.
Self-conscious posturing is thankfully off the agenda too - instead we get Styles cheerily lip synching along to the insanely catchy ‘ba da da’ of the chorus and giving us some ad-libbed dance moves (including a silly backwards walk that One Direction fans might recognise from the Up All Night era).
It’s a sun-soaked three-and-a-half minutes that’s the perfect antidote to impending winter blues - we’re not saying it’s a substitute for your cancelled summer holiday, but it might just help lessen the blow. Styles rightly looks like he’s having the time of his life, just as he did in the similarly colourful and chaotic video for previous single Watermelon Sugar.
Styles’ sense of humour - and excellent dress sense - turns the release of each music video into a social media event (before Watermelon Sugar came the promo for Adore You, a beautifully turned-out eight-minute epic about... a magical fish). With joy seeming to be in short supply at the moment, here’s to Harry.
