Harry Styles and Dunkirk
As a solo artist, Styles joined Jeffrey Azoff’s Full Stop Management and talent agency CAA, signing a recording contract with Columbia Records in the first half of 2016. Around this time, he also launched his own record label, Erskine Records. Recording for Styles’ debut album occurred throughout 2016 in Los Angeles, London and Port Antonio, Jamaica, where Styles and his collaborators spent a two-month writing retreat in the autumn. In March 2017, he announced that his first solo single, “Sign of the Times”, would be released on 7 April. The song peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100. A glam rock-influenced soft rock power ballad, it drew comparisons to the work of David Bowie. Rolling Stone ranked “Sign of the Times” as the best song of 2017. Its music video featured Styles flying and walking on water and won the Brit Award for British Video of the Year. In April, Styles was a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in the US and made his debut televised solo performance in the UK on The Graham Norton Show.
His self-titled debut album was released in May 2017, whereupon it debuted at number one in several countries, including Australia, the UK and the US. The record was influenced by 1970s soft rock and was described by Variety as a “classic cocktail of psychedelia, Britpop, and balladry”. It received generally favourable reviews from critics and was included in several publications’ lists of the best albums of 2017.
Harry Styles yielded two more singles, “Two Ghosts” and “Kiwi”. The film Harry Styles: Behind the Album, which documented the writing and recording process for the album, was released in May exclusively on Apple Music. Styles embarked on his first headlining concert tour, Harry Styles: Live on Tour, from September 2017 through to July 2018, performing in North and South Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. On tour he debuted two unreleased songs, “Anna” and “Medicine”.
Styles made his feature film debut in Christopher Nolan’s war film Dunkirk, in July 2017, playing a British soldier named Alex in the Dunkirk evacuation during World War II. He appeared alongside an ensemble cast which included Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy. Styles won the part over “thousands of young men”; Nolan later admitted he was unaware of the extent of Styles’ fame and that he was cast “because he fit the part wonderfully and truly earned a seat at the table”. The Daily Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin praised Styles for his “bright, convicted, and unexpectedly not-at-all-jarring performance”.
In November 2017, BBC One broadcast Harry Styles at the BBC, a one-hour television special presented by Nick Grimshaw. Later that month, he performed at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show held in Shanghai. At 2017 ARIA Music Awards, Styles received the Best International Artist award. He guest-hosted The Late Late Show with James Corden in December.
Together with Jack Antonoff and Ilsey Juber, Styles cowrote “Alfie’s Song (Not So Typical Love Song)”, performed by the band Bleachers, for the soundtrack of the film Love, Simon (2018). He also served as an executive producer on the CBS sitcom Happy Together, which premiered in October 2018 and was inspired by his time living with television producer Ben Winston and his wife. In 2018, Styles began modelling for the Italian fashion house Gucci, appearing in several campaigns for the brand.