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Every Harry Styles Song Ranked

He’s built one of the wildest, weirdest songbooks of modern times — from Seventies raunch to epic folk beauty to glam grandeur

By ROB SHEFFIELD, MAURA JOHNSTON
Harry Styles photo collage

RICH FURY/GETTY IMAGES FOR SPOTIFY; ANTHONY PHAM VIA GETTY IMAGES; FRED DUFOUR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Harry Styles dropped his debut solo single, “Sign of the Times,” in 2017. Since then, he’s built one of the wildest, weirdest songbooks of modern times. A brilliant body of work, from a genius singer, songwriter, and performer. And it’s just about to get bigger, since he’s also an evil angel of chaos who never gets tired of wreaking havoc on our lives.

What a songbook: 53 songs, all of them great, from an artist who already rates with the all-time legends. So let’s break it down: Every Harry Styles songs ever, ranked and reviewed. No duds here, just gems from bottom to top, so it’s a tribute to every single song. 

Every fan would pick a different list — that’s the whole fun of it. So your list is guaranteed to be different — hell, our list would change from hour to hour, because as with most fans, our favorite tends to be the one we’re listening to right now. So obviously, don’t sweat the order they’re in — these are all songs to celebrate. The words are the point here, not the numbers.

Let’s face it, there are lots of Harries. He’s a pop star. An actor. A scholar of music history. A fashion icon. A dangerous madman who finds his pleasure in getting under our skin and trashing our expectations and dancing on our madness. And honestly, bless him for that. He’s all of these things, but as these songs prove, the realest, truest Harry is the one who puts his heart and soul into this music. 

The list includes everything from all three of his solo albums, right up to Harry’s House. We’re also counting songs he’s made a crucial part of his tours, even if they’re not officially released. Sure, this is totally cheating, but otherwise we’d have to leave “Medicine” off the list, which would be a tragedy.

No One Direction tunes — that would be a totally different list. As the old song says, we don’t want a shadow holding us hostage, right?

So let’s make some noise for all 53 of these songs, and the man who brought them into the world. And here’s to the music he’s got in store for the future. Step into the light.

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3

‘Matilda’

The emotional core of Harry’s House is a tenderly sung note to a friend who’s still sorting through the psychic wreckage of childhood neglect. Styles, backed by a spectral choir and not much else, comforts his friend (whose stand-in is the titular character from the Roald Dahl fantasy novel), guiding her into the light where she can be her own person and bathe in much-deserved appreciation from those who now surround her. —M.J.Best line: “You showed me a power that is strong еnough to bring sun to the darkest days/It’s none of my business, but it’s just been on my mind.”

2

‘As It Was’

The first taste of his third album, Harry’s House, and an instant Number One hit. “As It Was” is a seductive dance-floor synth-pop bop — yet it’s also the most nakedly vulnerable tune he’s ever done. It opens with the voice of his goddaughter, angry about a missed call. (“Come on Harry, we wanna say good night to you!”) But even when he feels down and out, the breathy intimacy in his voice makes it feel like this is a shared story between two people. The ecstatic chimes ringing at the end are Harry playing “tubular bells.” Total genius, done and dusted in three minutes. What a way to kick off the Harry’s House era, almost exactly five years after his debut single. —R.S.Best line: “Answer the phone/Harry, you’re no good alone/Why are you sitting at home on the floor?/What kind of pills are you on?”

1

‘Sign of the Times’

The last thing the world was expecting from Harry Styles. His first solo single after One Direction wasn’t a pop banger, it was a nearly six-minute love-and-death piano epic. Talk about an audacious career move: He was aiming for the high ground of David Bowie, or Prince, or Queen. As Harry told Rolling Stone in 2017, it’s sung from the perspective of a mother dying in childbirth. “The mother is told, ‘The child is fine, but you’re not going to make it.’ The mother has five minutes to tell the child, ‘Go forth and conquer.’” That’s why “Sign of the Times” feels uplifting, finding beauty in bleakness. The song made an instant impact — it hit Number Four in the U.S. — but it just gets more powerful as you live with it over the years. (It’s a totally different song if it happens to carry you through a grief experience.) “Sign of the Times” seems to pack a lifetime’s worth of hope into a few minutes. After this, nobody doubted Harry Styles again. —R.S. Best line: “Just stop your crying, it’s a sign of the times/Welcome to the final show/Hope you’re wearing your best clothes/You can’t bribe the door on your way to the sky.”

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