Coming off the back of the successful career with boyband One Direction, singer Harry Styles recently released his self-titled debut solo album in May this year. Divergent from his work up until this point, the album is a collection of soft rock tunes and power ballads, recorded on the coast of Port Antonio, Jamaica (Rolling Stone, 2017). The third track of the album, titled Carolina, is the specific track that will be discussed in this review.
Reminiscent of the British rock of the 1970s, Carolina is a song with romantic lyrics and lush guitar.
The track opens with both electric and acoustic riffs, as well as soft percussion. The instrumental is accompanied by backings of Styles’ voice, with the melody being layered in a way that resembles The Beatles’ Ticket to Ride (1965), another boy band of British origin. The likeness is not uncanny, seeing as One Direction has been frequently compared with the successful rock band, both in fan base and musical style.
The lyrics focus on a girl that the artist has romantic feelings for, with the song progressing as the lyrics describe more of her personality. Amidst the drums and guitar, Styles talks about the mystery girl with affection and admiration, with the chorus backed up by dream-like “la la la”s. The song, whilst having a starry-eyed ambience, is measurably more mature than his past work, which contained melodies and lyrics that described an innocent and young kind of love, in order to reflect the target audience of that band. The release of music such as Carolina marks a change in direction for Styles, as he begins to move away from the image of One Direction and come into his own musical persona. This maturity in his music is a result of his increased age and his time spent honing his song writing skills and musical artistry. Styles seems to show success with his new found artistic freedom, an occurrence that is unusual in bandmates seeking a solo career. With the bar set high, we can only hope and expect that his future music will continue to show these new and much-loved sides of what we thought was a transparent performer.
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