Harry Styles, owner of six British Record Industry Trusts Show awards, three Grammys and seven U.K. Top 10 singles, has returned to the pop culture spotlight with his new single, Aperture, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
After his fourth album, Harry’s House, in 2022, Styles largely disappeared from the public eye, neither posting on social media nor making public appearances. The only sliver of publicity his fanbase was able to grasp onto during his three-year disappearance came last September, when he ran the Berlin Marathon.
On Jan. 16, Styles made his long-awaited return to social media by announcing his new album, titled, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. In under 50 minutes, the post gained over two million likes on Instagram.
This absence between Styles’ albums has something somewhat old-fashioned about it, and this is unlikely to be accidental. Since starting his solo career in 2017, Styles has branded himself as a throwback artist brought to the present through 1970s inspired musical sounds and fashion choices.
On the surface, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, with its cover image of Styles wearing oversized 70’s glasses under a suspended disco ball, seems to continue this theme. Even the five minute and 11 second length of his newest single, “Aperture”, would not be appealing to those whose attention span has been affected by the invention of social media.
“Aperture”, released Jan. 22, was the perfect, quietly confident return to the music world for Styles. He decided to lean into atmosphere over flashiness, using an electro-pop style that mixes alternative, indie, dance and electronics an “intriguingly unresolved” song, according to music journalist Danielle Holian.
“There’s a meditative side of the song, which is what I wanted it to feel like,” said Styles in an interview with Sirius XM., “I wanted it to be like a trance.”
Key lyrics in the song say, “It’s best you know what you don’t // Aperture lets the light in.” This song uses this photography term, which refers to the opening in a camera lens, as a metaphor for embracing light, truth and positivity.
Styles said in an interview for BBC Radio 1’s Breakfast Show with Greg James that his single was influenced by “classic pop songwriting”, the musical group LCD Soundsystem, and the English post-punk band The Durutti Column.
“I saw [LCD Soundsystem] at a festival in Madrid, then saw them again at Brixton [Academy, London],” Styles said, “It was so joyous watching them be immersed in it. The inspiration from watching [LCD Soundsystem] and realizing ‘that’s how I want to feel when I’m on stage,’ and it matched the music I was making.”
Ultimately, this song allowed Styles to come back to the pop- culture world as a matured artist, stepping outside of his comfort zone.
“I’d had a couple years away from work stuff and a lot of big realizations about generally opening up more to the world and allowing some more positive things to come into my life,” Styles said. “It was the culmination of all that was happening around me making this record. [Aperture] was like a perfect little bow.”
