Anybody with a working phone can remember being bombarded with TikToks backed by the sound of “As It Was”. Harry Styles has managed to assert himself as one of the main Pop Boys of the 2020s. The 2024 Album of the Year winner has a fanbase that spans various countries, ages, and genders. His gender-fluid fashion and retro-pop sound has been a catalyst for his unique standing in mainstream music. His success has reached so far and wide that a considerable amount of his audience are unaware or unfazed by his past as a member of the English-Irish sensation One Direction.
For decades, boybands played a major role in (teenage girl) pop culture, with bands ranging from The Jacksons to The Beatles. One Direction was no exception and is seen as one of the last examples of a culturally relevant boyband. Despite this, in the entirety of their five-year-run, One Direction neither won a Grammy nor reached the top of the Billboard Top 100 chart – both signifiers of the pinnacle of success in the music industry. On the other hand, as a soloist, Harry Styles has seen both achievements many times over. This is not a new phenomenon: many former boyband members have seen immense success after the disbandment of their group, with Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake being the most prominent examples. All of the aforementioned artists were coincidentally the “Beyonces” of their respective groups. Styles was positioned as the main heartthrob of One Direction, receiving the most lines and screentime throughout their career.
Zayn Malik was the first member of One Direction to forge a solo path, and he cited feeling that the band’s musical trajectory was not enjoyable to him. As a result, his solo work has been a complete change to the pop-rock genre of the band and is instead a darker, R&B-influenced style. His unexpected departure and turn to a genre on the opposite end of the spectrum led to a lack of interest from a gross majority of Directioners after the novelty of his departure faded. Unlike Malik, the rest of the One Direction members have still maintained a semblance of the personalities that they marketed themselves as during their time in the band. In the case of Styles, he still has the charming, heartthrob image that he had in One Direction. Because of this, he kept a majority of his 1D fans while enticing new listeners with his matured, retro take on the pop-rock genre.
I would be remiss to not take into account that Styles’ ability to reach astronomical heights in comparison to his former bandmates has much to do with those pulling the strings behind him. He is represented by Jeffrey Azoff, the son of Irving Azoff, a well-connected, legendary figure in the entertainment industry through his executive running of The Azoff Company and Full Stop Management. Similar to other former band artists who have seen more success as soloists, their management has played a major role in their heightened success.
Marketing an individual is easier and more profitable, hence why many boybands have an unofficial leading man – like Harry Styles was. This has also guided the way the K-Pop industry has still managed to rely on bands to lead the genre. The members’ individuality is heavily highlighted, and many K-Pop groups have members running solo and group activities concurrently to cater to multiple audiences and streams of income. This is most famously seen with BTS. The Western music industry has not done well to exploit this concept, as seen with One Direction and other boybands honing in on group work only, sometimes to the detriment of individuality.
Harry Styles has his past as a member of One Direction to thank for the leg-up he had in the beginning of his solo arc. However, he is an intriguing case study of how marketing and knowing the right people can create a successful career and make solo work more valuable in the music industry.
Visual: Gabriella Le Roux
