Is Harry Styles the new Justin Timberlake?
“What goes around comes back around. I thought I told ya, hey”
Every so often there’s a moment in popular culture when I think to myself that something monumental is really happening here. There’s a paradigm shift, a theme that will not disappear or not come up in conversation and normally it is confirmed by a like-minded friend reaching out to ask, “have you seen this?” Recently, I got a text from a friend that made me rethink where we are at in terms of boy band stars going solo and this idea really manifested and got me thinking, “Is Harry Styles the new Justin Timberlake?” Here me out for a minute.
The summer of 1998 was arguably one of the best times in my life for a number of reasons, one of them being my introduction to *NSYNC and the awe-inspiring talent of Justin Timberlake (JT). It was the morning of August 28, 1998, and after an all-night talking session with a guy who would turn into a two-year devastating unrequited love story, he walked me to my summer job just off of Union Square in Downtown Manhattan. As we walked down 14th Street from Second Avenue, we neared Third Avenue and could tell something was afoot at the base of the park. We picked up our pace and as we got to the newly erected Virgin Megastore on 14th and Broadway, we were met by a crowd of tween girls and Richard Branson was standing on top of a double-decker bus outside the store, firing up the crowd. Before we knew it, N’Sync was on top of the bus performing “Tearin’ Up My Heart” followed by “I Want You Back,” and we were dancing and singing right alongside the tweens as if hypnotized by the music, the dancing, and energy. I don’t know about him, but I was hooked. These guys were bringing the boy band game hard and I was all in.
Of course, N’Sync continued to catapult into world domination and by the next year, they were absolutely everywhere. That crowd of hundreds at the Virgin Megastore would be hundreds of thousands and I was still captivated. So much so, that I delved deep into the psyche behind boy bands and decided to write a paper about it for a Contemporary Theory class I took in college at the time. With the help of my professor, we looked at the boy band as if one shattered Prince Charming’s mirror and it split into five pieces. There was someone for everyone. Like a jokester? Joey Fatone is probably for you. Do you enjoy the quirky guy? Maybe you’d like Chris Kirckpatrick? And then there was Justin Timberlake. Raised performing, he was what I like to call a Painted Baby, a reference to a 1996 documentary about beauty pageant contestants. A term meaning that from nearly his infancy, he was groomed to be on stage complete with his mom as his manager.
In 1991, JT premiered his talents on Star Search and from there he moved onto the Mickey Mouse Club and then transitioned into the Lou Pearlman boy band factory. It was a natural progression for him to front this group with his well-trained voice, deliberate showmanship, evolved voice, and good looks. My paper dove deep into the culture of child performers, the history of boy bands (Love you NKOTB!), and settled on the thesis that Justin Timberlake would be the most successful product to emerge from the boy band industry, once *NSYNC broke up of course. It was a bold thesis that many of my classmates snickered at and others enjoyed discussing further. I concluded that we’d see a solo career that would span genres, a movie career in buddy comedy movies, and later in life, a slowed-down acoustic sound.
In October 2000, my roommate was an assistant for a Good Morning America executive producer, a job with little perks and a dreadful schedule. She, a huge *NSYNC fan as well, let me know that they were going to be on the show and I could be her guest. I needed to get to Times Square before dawn and I would be a studio audience member. I can’t even remember if I slept the night before, but I was down there well before dawn the next morning. As I walked up, the line to get in was around the corner and across the street, Backstreet Boys fans slept lining the streets waiting for their beloved band to appear later that day on Total Request Live. We were in the throws of boy band mania.
As a guest of an employee, I rode in a freight elevator with a group of tweens half my age and all presumable children of crew members and felt more than lucky. I watched NSync perform a few songs, teach Diane Sawyer how to do the “Bye Bye Bye” dance and left around 9 am on an ultimate high. JT was really out in front of this group and if my seminal college paper was correct, he would be leaving the band at any moment. I saw the way Diane Sawyer looked at him. He was it.
In 2002, N’Sync officially broke up and later that year, JT’s solo album, “Justified” came out and with it, Justin as a permanent fixture in popular culture. In 2003 I was moving from one spot in LA to another and my mom and I were driving to my storage unit in Santa Monica playing the celebrity look-alike game, “Don’t look now, but Bette Midler is in the car next to you.” Of course, it wasn’t Bette, but an older redhead. We got to a light and a white Cadillac truck pulled up next to us and my mom said, “Don’t look now, but Justin Timberlake is checking you out the car next to us.” I laughed and when I turned, it sure was JT and we locked eyes. My mom and I burst out laughing and I figured I would post Craig’s List Missed Connection for him. He never responded, but two guys thought I was funny and asked me out while another offered up that JT played basketball at the gym next to the ArcLight every Friday so if I was feeling it, I should go ball with him.
We all know what comes next for JT; public break up with the then pop queen and former Mouseketeer Britney Spears, two more amazing albums, some great SNL appearances, hilarious collaborations with The Lonely Island, that bizarre Super Bowl moment, a number of abysmal film roles, boring marriage to a borderline anti-vaxxer and an eventual quiet exit from the limelight of yesteryear. His album “Man of the Woods” was, in this fan’s eyes, a total flop and though I do still stand by that paper I wrote, I feel like JT’s due for a renaissance - where is the buddy cop comedy movie?!? Or maybe it’s time for someone else to take the reigns. We did have a great run, JT.
Towards the end of 2019, I read an article about how great Harry Styles’ new album, “Fine Lines” is and took a pause. Styles’ caught my attention at the MET Gala earlier in 2019 when he not only cohosted but rocked a sexy, gender-fluid look that felt very of the moment and high fashion. I decided to give the album a listen. I sat in my backyard listening and with every song, I found myself saying, “oh shit,” aloud. The album, “Fine Lines,” is incredible. It’s a mix of classic pop, dreamy California folk, uplifting Brit Pop, and a stellar power ballad. I continued to listen to this album in private because I wasn’t sure if this was a fluke, if my knack for pop culture trends is fading and I’m totally off. Just when I thought this would be a secret I was going to live with, the dots started to connect. A friend from high school posted on Facebook, “Is it wrong that as a 40-year-old father of two that I love the new harry styles album? Wanted to blame it on my oldest daughter, but dang. It is really good.” Not wrong at all, friend, not wrong at all.
About a week later, my husband and I were driving listening to the podcast “Flop Stars” list their favorite albums of the year and when one mentioned “Fine Lines,” I blurted out, “HELL YES!” My husband laughed and I assured him it was good and we proceeded to listen and he agreed, it was damn good. I watched Harry’s appearance on SNL and though there are no singing restaurant mascot sketches or “Dick in a Box” level memories, he was funny, well-rounded, and appeared to be having a good time. He rocked nail polish the whole time and made it look hot. I checked Harry’s IMDB and apparently I need to watch “Dunkirk.” But a Nolan Brother’s movie is a good credit and I like his dramatic direction. He comes from humble beginnings, was in a band at school, worked weekends at a bakery and was rejected from X Factor before Simon Cowell put him with other contestants to form the band One Direction.
If Justin Timberlake is a piece of this shattered Prince Charming mirror, Harry Styles is an amalgamation of all of them; funny, sweet, kind, a bit of bad boy, and mysterious. Harry Styles will braid your hair, fetch some water, catch a fish, and be a great make out. He’s fun, not intimidating and a watermelon sugar high sounds like a sweet little Saturday afternoon buzz. JT’s lyrics focused around a heteronormative narrative that centered around “you and me, girl” and a one-dimensional look at love that many, including myself, believed to be true for years; be yourself, try to look like a model in a video, enjoy dancing, be loyal, and a guy will totally love you for all of this unconditionally. Of course Harry’s band One Direction also followed this formula, but honestly, they never registered on my radar and only recently did I deep dive into their music and think, “oh I’ve totally heard this song before.” Sure, Harry can’t dance like JT nor does he have the falsetto, but his content is more than twice the man Timberlake will ever be.
In Styles’ solo music there’s a sense of vulnerability, there’s self-reflection on a level we haven’t heard from a pop star in a while, and there is definitely gender nonconformity. Have you seen the video for “Adore You?” He’s in love with a fish. It’s wildly refreshing. When I listen to his songs I don’t see the crooner singing to the unattainable model as is the case in most JT songs. I see and hear a pop star for a new era of the acceptance that love is complicated, loneliness often comes as the result of being an “arrogant son of a bitch,” and in order to shine we’ve got to ask ourselves that simple question, “Do you know who you are?” Like us as a culture, it’s evolved and speaks to every facet of our lives.
Start here on your Harry Styles adventure.
Clearly I’m under a Styles spell and perhaps after this fever pitch calms down, I’ll be over it, but I’m not convinced. I do see more on the horizon for Harry Styles. I do see a movie career and an ever-evolving musical style that could mirror the likes of David Bowie with a sprinkle of Donavan and Tom Jones. I see more variety show type appearances, big splashes in the fashion world, and even though he’s dated female models for a while, I see Harry having a healthy relationship with a guy or a gender non-binary in the near future. I’m excited about where his career because it’s matured from the boy band narrative of “you plus me, girl” to space where picturesque metaphor abounds, storytelling thrives, it feels like a personal journey between two people and it definitely doesn’t feel unrequited.