Jenny Lewis (Opening for Harry Styles) - Love On Tour - Atlanta, GA - 10/28/21 - State Farm Arena

If there's one thing that could be said of our modern era, it's that nothing exists in isolation.

One could even say that nothing goes in just one direction anymore—instead, things are moving in multiple directions, operating in loops, often meeting at crossroads. For a long time, at least in the music industry, things appeared to be stratified, separated by genre, linear visions, and arbitrary categories. Rock artists toured with rock artists; indie stars opened for indie stars. Patrician music lovers looked down on pop-lovers, and pop-lovers bullied indieheads. Success could be purchased with a record deal and marked by a position on a top chart. Gender was divided between a man and a woman. Feminism was disconnected from race and class.

Times are changing. Pop, like fashion, has become fluid and multidimensional. Elton John can collaborate with Young Thug. Lady Gaga can ricochet from electronica to folk and back. Harry Styles has become a bisexual icon and a truly great songwriter, capable of drawing from multiple genres to create nuanced and political pop music.

And now he's going on tour with Jenny Lewis, Koffee, and King Princess. They'll all be opening for him on different stops on his 2020 "Love on Tour" tour, which will begin in April.


A little background: Jenny Lewis is an iconic songwriter who fronted the band Rilo Kiley before creating a body of intensely powerful solo work. Koffee is a singer-songwriter, rapper, and musician from Jamaica who's generated a huge amount of buzz in a short time by putting a fresh and experimental spin on reggae. King Princess is a dream pop star who may or may not be capitalizing on queer aesthetics but still embodies an inspiringly out and proud image.

Styles' choice of openers is brilliant because it brings together so many different devoted and passionate fan-bases. Queer fans will relish the chance to dance along to King Princess, while indie traditionalists and older millennials will come for Jenny Lewis, and Gen-Z fans of cutting-edge music will show up for Koffee. All these musicians are bound together by one common thread: Their music is really, really good. And isn't that what matters in the end?

Rilo Kiley - A Better Son/Daughterwww.youtube.com


King Princess - 1950www.youtube.com


Koffee - Toast (Official Video)www.youtube.com

Unfortunately, the existing tickets sold out with stunning speed and cost an exorbitant amount of money, sadly prohibiting many of Styles' fans from enjoying the experience. (Many of them feel scammed). If Styles were to truly embrace the ethos of his commitment to breaking down all genres and boundaries, he'd make his concerts free, but alas, one can only dream... Until then, let us keep listening to our descriptively titled crossover Spotify playlists (shoutout to "Creamy" and "Pollen"), saying "okay" to Boomers who insist that there are only two genders, checking Co-Star for evidence of discernible meaning, and praying for the day when everything and everyone will truly be free.

Harry Styles - Sign of the Times (Video)www.youtube.com

MUSIC

Harry Styles' "Lights Up" Is an Anthem for Confused Bisexuals

Gender and sexuality is a performance, but there's no script.

Harry Styles has kept fans waiting for new music for quite a while, but he certainly did not disappoint with his first single since 2017's "Sign of the Times."

"Lights Up" is a frothy, effortless indie pop number that places Styles' flawless vocals above a funky bassline and dreamy guitar flourishes. It feels infused with the kind of energy that citrus skincare advertisements promise you, but its substance and nuance extend much further than skin-deep.

The song builds up to clusters of harmonies and gospel choirs, wound together with delicate piano. At three minutes, it's a short, concise, and crisp collage of modern and vintage sounds that show off Styles' versatility as well as his expert pop sensibility.

Lyrically, it's all over the place, and since the moment it was released, fans have been reading into its possible implications. Some proposed that the lyrics "I'm not ever going back" are referring to Styles' decision to never return to his One Direction boy band days.

Others think that this is Styles' official declaration of his bisexuality (it is National Coming Out Day, after all). Styles has never explicitly confirmed his sexual orientation, and in 2017, he told The Sun that he doesn't use labels. "No, I've never felt the need to really. No…I don't feel like it's something I've ever felt like I have to explain about myself," he said.

His lyrics have insinuated bisexual themes before. In the song Medicine, he sang, "Tingle running through my bones / The boys and the girls are in / I mess around with him / And I'm okay with it."

Perhaps Styles is smart to avoid labeling his sexuality. Recently, there has been extensive debate about the difference between bisexuality and pansexuality, a difference that largely boils down to semantics and individual interpretation. Labels are perpetually changing and shifting, but of course, these monikers and intricacies obscure what is arguably the point of the entire LGBTQ+ identity: We should all be able to be who we are, and to love who we wish to love.

Of course, it sometimes seems like our world does everything to make this impossible. A deeper dig into the "Lights Up" lyrics reflects this, revealing that not everything is love and light in Harry Styles' glamorous world. Styles did tell Rolling Stone that his new album is going to be all about "having s*x and feeling sad," and in "Lights Up," he's keeping that promise.

The lyrics, "All the lights couldn't put out the dark / Running through my heart / Lights up and they know who you are / Do you know who you are?" seems to hint at a kind of existential questioning that belies the discomfort that often accompanies trying to figure out who you are, corroborated by the pressures of being caught in the insatiable limelight.

We may never know who Harry Styles really is, beyond the glittering figure he presents himself to be. Then again, we're all constantly performing various identities, many of us never knowing just how much we've been influenced and shaped by the outside world and its conventions. As we try to come to terms with who we really are, the best we can hope is that we have a few nights spent on the backs of motorcycles like Styles in "Lights Up," throwing our hands up to the sky and dancing to the beat.