Cosmic chancer: is Harry Styles’s psych phase a bluff?

Before Harry Styles released his first solo album in 2017, nobody had any idea what to expect. One moment he was on The X Factor singing Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn to Sinitta in canvas M&S slippers and a mum scarf, and the next he was covered in tatts, appearing in high-fashion spreads looking like he had probably caught at least one STI (one of the cooler ones, like chlamydia). Would he sound like a former boyband member, or the mini Mick Jagger he had styled himself as? The resulting self-titled debut was both: rock-influenced, comfortably cool, appealing to his teen fanbase and newer adult fans alike.

With album two on the horizon, could Styles’s next artistic persona be coming into view? A couple of years have passed since his debut and he has now fully solidified himself as someone who wears Gucci flares, hangs with Stevie Nicks and writes bisexual anthems. Still, that didn’t prepare anyone for the onslaught that was his recent Rolling Stone profile in which we learned that album two was born among a swirl of magic mushrooms, Malibu beach parties, Paul McCartney’s Ram, T-Rex’s Cosmic Dancer, Haruki Murakami novels, transcendental meditation, a break-up with Instagram model Camille Rowe and an old American game called Cornhole, where you fling some sacks into distant holes. Or, in his words: “It’s all about having sex and feeling sad.”

From that strange combo, you would be forgiven for thinking this album is going to be Mother Earth’s Plantasia with some spoken-word poetry about shagging over the top. But if we have learned anything from what pop stars say their albums are influenced by, and what they actually end up sounding like, we know there is usually quite a substantial gap in between. Zayn Malik, for instance, was said to be heavily influenced by Frank Ocean. Taylor Swift has spoken about her love of Annie Lennox. Grimes is obsessed with OutKast and Tool. In fact, Styles was recently spotted with super pop producer Max Martin, so maybe the new record is actually wall-to-wall bangers. Or, was his recent move of turning down the role of Prince Eric in the live-action version of The Little Mermaid because he’s got a collection of OTT water-themed musical numbers tucked up his billowing sleeves?

Look, let’s be honest, the new Harry Styles album is probably going to be a bunch of classic rock songs, with a handful of instrumental psychedelic breakdowns and at least one track that is nine minutes long (musicians who get into mushrooms always start releasing really long songs; I don’t make the rules). All we know to be 100% true at this point is that Styles could release 18 songs of him viscerally screaming over a distant banjo and the glossy magazine covers would still keep coming in.