The self-titled debut of One Direction’s Harry Styles dropped a little over a week ago to record-breaking sales and a wide array of critical reception. “Harry Styles” has been both lauded and reprimanded for its massive lineup of influences, as Harry was daring enough (or perhaps, as we’ll get to later, on-trend enough) to look back to old rock n’ roll traditions to govern his solo pursuit into pop music. The songs on the album evoke artists across a wide plane of musical history, from The Beatles, to Prince, to Elton John, to The Rolling Stones.

And while it remains for Harry and his growth as an artist to determine whether he has succeeded in making his deeply influenced music his own, one thing is certain. Culturally, Harry Styles is a man of distinction and unprecedented uniqueness in the worlds of fandom, celebrity, and feminism. To me, this is what justifies his ambition in slapping his name-tag onto what appears to be a collection of songs straight from another era.

Harry’s career in One Direction started his own expanse of fandom and discussion five years ago, but it is most recently that his solo endeavor has brought him outside the realm of the 1D fan-world, and into the realm of respectable consideration. In other words, now that he’s out of the boyband, important, adult people want to give him attention. And in this article, I want to try and flesh out why it is that he is someone worth the attention, and why perhaps, he should’ve been granted such respect all along.

Here’s the Harry Styles discourse:

On the Teenage Female Demographic

The most immediate thing that separates Harry Styles as a singular figure from the outpouring of voices in his album and his affiliation with 1D is his stage presence. Because I have (to my complete and utter chagrin) never seen him live, I can’t speak to this through experience, so videos of his performances will have to do. One Direction went on four world tours, and through the video evidence it is apparent not only how much Harry belongs on the stage (see: magnificent hair flowing as he sings, powerful stadium vocals, charming interactions with the crowd), but also how much he genuinely appreciates the audience that put him there.

In every show, he thanks everyone over and over for attending, and despite the low grade respect that boybands receive in the music world, Harry consistently honors the importance 1D held for each of the teenage girls in his audiences. In a Rolling Stone article entitled “Harry Styles: Boy of the Year of the Girl”, Harry is recognized for his constant respect of the teenage female demographic that composes his fanbase. Despite having a media-driven image as a “womanizer” Harry speaks openly about feminism and his respect for girls.

This is incredibly important, because in the current pop industry, it’s the teenage girls who matter. When a song or an artist captures the attention of this demographic, that’s what makes them reach a level of success supported by stats on the charts and numbers on the boards. And yet, when the teenage girls claim something in the music world, that might mean success for the artist, it also means that song or artist loses a certain credibility. Teenage girls are considered to be the “mainstream”, and it’s alarming how few artists honor that fact by respecting their female fans. Even Harry’s former bandmate, Zayn, doesn’t seem to understand the importance of the female fan to his success. After leaving the band, Zayn vigorously distanced himself from One Direction and its music, in a way emasculating himself in hopes to garner that “adult” or “male” credibility which alienates that of teenage girls. Harry, in his behind-the-scenes feature of his solo album, was asked how he feels about his experience in the boyband.

“When you leave a boyband, you feel like you have to go the complete other direction, and kind of say, ‘Don’t worry everyone, I hated it’,” He says. A pause. “I loved it.”

On Femininity and Sexuality

Another thing that separates Harry from his peers in the current pop music era is his comfort in expressing his identity. This is most obvious in the way he dresses himself. Increasingly in the past few years, Harry has been donning more and more experimental garb, and refuses to shy away from a style even if it presents him in a way that is more like Prince or Bowie than like Bieber. Recently, his outfits have been floral suits, sparkly boots, and amusingly, a striped jumpsuit the day after the “Romphims” phenomenon began. Likewise, he has been known to wear nail polish on a few of his fingers, his former long locks gave him a bit of androgyny in his appearance, and his affinity for pink was well documented even before he made it the theme of his album cover.

Harry tends to adopt a sort of femininity in his presentation both in his clothing and the way he seems to prance across the stage, which contrasts extraordinarily with his deep voice and oftentimes violently masculine stage thrusts. As can be predicted, this failure to align with traditional gender presentation causes Styles’ persona to be intertwined with the issue of gender, and though he has yet to make any major statements on his own relationship with the subject, this aligns him with an internet group for whom issues like this are very important. On Tumblr, Harry has seemed to gain an inordinate following of people who fall under the LGBTQ spectrum, most specifically lesbian or bisexual women. It is because of his implicit doctrine that gender is of little matter, and explicit doctrine of unconditional support for young women's interests, that this community is able to feel safe and flourish.

This demographic and their devotion to Harry Styles is especially important, considering how alienated the culture of LGBTQ women can be. While the gay male devotion to divas such as Britney and Gaga is celebrated in pop culture, lesbian culture is kept alarmingly under wraps, and limited to small fandom circles. This is why Harry Styles’ unfaltering, nonjudgmental, safe, and very public support can and should be seen as the standard for all other celebrity figures, because as with Harry's case, it encourages people who don't identify with heteronormative ideals to seek coalition with each other, and thus makes the public a safer place for other figures who don't conform.

As far as sexuality goes, Harry’s own is something that is frequently discussed, theorized about, and fought over. His femininity, public support of the LGBT community, and stray comments (for example, “Not that important” was his response to his bandmate saying that ‘female’ was an important trait in a potential partner) all have led many to speculate on the specifics of Harry’s sexual orientation. However, just last week in an interview with The Sun, Harry stated that he “felt no need to label his sexuality”, effectively quelling speculators arguing that he falls on either side of the spectrum.

Out of respect for his statement that he feels no need to label his sexuality, I will make no speculation in this piece, but I will say that his statement very well could be an assurance to younger fans struggling with their own sexuality that it's perfectly fine to follow suit. Additionally, considering the fact that Harry's recent album has songs about females- the lost lover in "Woman", the "good girl" in "Carolina"- Harry can serve as a reminder. Celebrities, including Harry, don't owe the public access into their personal lives other than that which they are comfortable sharing, and neither do you. We all have the right to draw inspiration from whatever (and whomever) we please.

Harry Styles, the Enigma

Harry is something of an enigma to even his most devoted fans. As a celebrity whose fanbase is primarily cultivated through the internet, he is surprisingly removed from his own social media accounts. His tweeting and Instagramming is incredibly scarce, his Facebook, Snapchat, and Tumblr presences obsolete. This fact is not aided by his time in One Direction, for as much as I adore boybands, I cannot dispute the fact that they are hyper-groomed to present as sellable images. The glimpses of Harry that fans see through promotion and interview have a slightly non-genuine aftertaste, because of the extreme media and image training 1D receives. It appears that Harry prefers more candid ways of expressing his personality, as the way in which he seems to become unleashed while performing in concert.

So then knowing what we now know is an enormous depth of personality and talk surrounding Harry Styles, why is it, do we think, that in his solo album he chose to write one that glorifies and even mimics an old, burnt-out rock n’ roll sound? Why does he have clichéd lyrics about women when he's hinted at being something other than straight and has shown such a nonconforming stance on gender roles? The answer might be simpler than you think.

When I think of the answers to this question, what comes to mind are two particular quotes of Styles’. The first is from a New York Times interview, where he was asked whether he found it a risk to go the rock route as a pop star. Harry responded that “That’s just what my references are. A lot of people, when they make music, they build a wall between them and fans. They think: ‘We’ll do this because people will get it.’ I really wanted to make an album that I wanted to listen to.” So, he’s writing what he’s listening to. He’s writing what he likes. It’s a starting place; a reference for growth. And it’s genius, especially in this age of nostalgia where people are dressing in 90’s themed garb, flocking to thrift stores, and devouring all the Disney remakes of childhood classics. By looking backward instead of forward, Styles might have just landed right on the zeitgeist.

The other quote I think of is his response to a question about who “Olivia”- a One Direction song Harry wrote- is about. He asks the interviewer, and also the viewer, “Is Olivia even a person? Is Olivia an emotion, is she a place? We don’t know.” He says this in an amusing way, complete with hand gestures and a slight sing-song taunting in his tone. However, a certain element of frustration lies in his response, which alludes to his constant deflections when he’s asked similarly probing questions about how his love life connects to his music.

In his debut album, Harry Styles might have written “Kiwi” about a girl who told him she’s having his baby, and he might have written “Sign of the Times” about a breakup that felt apocalyptic, and he might have written “From the Dining Table” about how he played with himself in a hotel room. However, if you read write-ups of “Sign of the Times” you can find that Harry wrote it from the perspective of a mother who dies during childbirth, and in his first performance of the album he said that “From the Dining Table” is a collection of stories told by his friends while they sat around a- guess- dining table. As for the “I’m having your baby” lyric in Kiwi… all bets are off.

Harry's Importance to Western Art & Culture

Truth be told, as much as I have studied Harry Styles (which is an embarrassingly extensive amount), I don’t think I could assert with any authority that his songs are about any one thing we will ever have access to. It goes back to his enigmatic personality, how he is one of the most famous artists of the time right now and yet even his devotees perceive him as something of a puzzle. But, you know, it seems to make alarming sense if you think about it: respect to the young female demographic in an age where both their illegitimacy of taste and their influence on commercial success are intersecting, throwing back his music style in an age of nostalgia, and withholding his true self in a time of oversharing and instant access to information through the internet. When you look at it on paper, Harry Styles almost seems like a formula for how to succeed in the Western Pop Industry, and he’s got the numbers, fanbase, and budding respect to show for how well it works.

Above all, however, Harry's subtle individuality reminds us that art is meant for the artist's enjoyment as much as it is for the consumer's. Harry is writing and wearing what makes him happy, and what he is comfortable sharing with the world. Instead of catering his work to certain demographics to gain credibility, he's respecting the demographics that support his work, and endlessly thanking them for doing so. Harry has many things to work on as he cultivates his solo career, but the culture he's surrounded himself in and the approach to his music that he's taken prove to be an extremely positive starting place.

And as he embarks on a tour that I won't be seeing, and goes on to do greater things, I would like to thank Harry Styles, for creating out of his influences and interests and letting us watch him in the process of becoming himself.