Even Former Boy-Banders Are Making Music About the End Times
Harry Styles’s “Sign of the Times” embraces epic arena rock on the way to launching the One Directioner’s solo career.
Last fall, Anne Donahue coined a handy term for the recent wave of male pop stars attempting to transcend teenage success. “The heartthrob is dead,” read her headline. “Long live the artthrob.” “Artthrob” speaks to how Justin Bieber, Zayn Malik, Drake, and others replaced public memories of school-age innocence not only with sex appeal but with. They skipped right past Justin Timberlake’s exuberant “Señorita” phase and headed straight for the moody angst of “What Goes Around... Comes Around.” They aimed to be taken less as grown-up showmen than grown-up artistes.
