“It’s our job to entertain you,” Harry Styles said three songs in to the first night of a record-breaking 12-gig run at Wembley Stadium. That’s nearly as many nights as Oasis and Taylor Swift managed between them, which tells you just how successfully Styles has unshackled himself from the ex-boyband member curse.
The 32-year-old had Wembley in the palm of his hand within seconds of strutting onstage to the sounds of Elvis Presley’s version of Bridge Over Troubled Water which was no accident: for opener Are You Listening Yet? he looked vaguely Teddy Boyish – pinstripe jacket, light blue shirt, black trousers two three inches too short to show off his white socks – and was soon swivelling his hips and commanding the stage with the sort of charisma you’d make a fortune bottling.
It was enough to instantly banish all the doubts about his fourth album, the bizarrely titled and grammatically questionable Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. It’s a record that was, weirdly, both simultaneously bold and safe, a musical shift into club music and the synth-dance of influential New York band LCD Soundsystem that didn’t go far enough: enjoyable, but a sanitised version of the real thing with somewhat meaningless lyrics. The critics weren’t overly impressed, and his streams – and pop at this level is a numbers game like never before – have been a 10th of his previous peaks.
