Harry Styles and Tears For Fears

The group finished in third place, and shortly after, signed with Syco Records. One Direction went on to become one of the biggest boy bands of all time.

After five albums and four world tours, One Direction disbanded in 2016. This marked the beginning of Harry Styles’ solo career. A year later, he released the first single from his upcoming self-titled debut album.

“Sign of The Times” reached number one on the UK singles and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. Rolling Stones magazine named it the best song of the year, with critics likening it to the styles of Queen and David Bowie. Its accompanying music video was also a giant success, winning British Video of the Year at the Brit Awards.

When Harry Styles released his self-titled debut album in May 2017, it topped the charts in several countries, including the US, UK, and Australia. In September that year, Styles embarked on his first headlining concert tour.

As if 2017 couldn’t get any bigger for Styles, the year also saw his feature film debut. He was cast as a soldier named Alex in the Christopher Nolan movie Dunkirk.

Styles switched to a role behind the camera in 2018, serving as executive producer for the television sitcom Happy Together. He also began modeling for Gucci that year, marking the beginning of his fashion evolution. With an affinity for high-waisted pants, pearls, and sparkles, Harry is well-known for his refusal to stick to the rules. Many fans delight in capturing and sharing his tour outfits on social media.

In 2019, Styles released “Lights Up,” the lead single from his much-anticipated second album. The song debuted at number three in the UK. Styles’ second album Fine Line dropped in December of the same year. Not only did it instantly top the US charts, the album broke the record for the biggest sales debut by a British male artist. It was also named one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine.

Fine Line produced five singles, including “Watermelon Sugar.” The song became Harry Styles’ first number-one single in the US.

Harry Styles was originally set to embark on a tour in 2020 to support 2019’s Fine Line. Unfortunately, it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, fans didn’t have to wait too long. The tour kicked off in 2021 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

In 2021, Harry Styles was nominated for three Grammy Awards, winning Best Pop Solo Performance for “Watermelon Sugar.” He also made a brief return to the big screen with a cameo appearance in Marvel’s “Eternals” film. He finished the year by launching his gender-neutral skin care line, Pleasing.

In 2022, Harry Styles dropped his third studio album, Harry’s House. The lead single, “As it Was,” debuted at number one in the UK and US. It topped the US charts for 15 consecutive weeks, making it the fourth longest-running number one single.

Harry’s House also topped both the UK and US charts, making Styles the first British solo artist to have four singles charting within the US Top 10 at the same time. At the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, he won three awards, including Album of the Year.

Harry Styles' film career also continues to grow. He appeared in the 2022 thriller Don’t Worry Darling and the 2022 film adaptation of My Policeman.

As part of his ongoing Love On Tour, Styles has performed 15 sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. The venue raised a permanent banner to mark his achievement. He’s the third artist in history to have received this honor.

From The X Factor stage to sold-out stadiums, Harry Styles has come a long way from his boy band roots. Thanks to his raw talent, excellent fashion sense, and down-to-earth personality, fans have joined him along for the ride

Driving the band ever since their formation has been the partnership of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, who met while they were teenagers at the same school in their native city Bath, in Somerset, England. Both of them were very musically talented and had chemistry together right away, performing together as The Baker Brothers around local pubs and clubs when they were a mere sixteen years old. However, they soon grew out of their band name, and since they opened their gigs with a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”, the duo decided to rename themselves after the film that the song was made famous in.

As the ska/mod revival band Graduate, the band secured themselves a publishing deal and an extra three members backing the original duo. They ended up releasing an album and a single in 1980 but both tanked in the U.K, despite making some small waves over Europe. By 1981, however, both Orzabal and Smith had moved on from what they were playing in Graduate, and wanted to start playing music influenced by the likes of Peter Gabriel, David Byrne and Brian Eno. They disbanded Graduate and formed a band influenced by the most cutting edge music of the time called History Of Headaches. They soon came to their senses and renamed the band Tears For Fears.

Using the connections they’d built with their previous group, the band secured a record deal with Phonogram Records the very same year they formed and expanded the group to a four piece with the addition of drummer Manny Elias and bassist Ian Stanley. Their first single came out in the November of that year, but “Suffer The Children” failed to chart despite it being play listed by the massively influential Radio One DJ John Peel, and their second single, “Pale Shelter”, didn’t do much better. Things looked bleak for the band, but their third single would prove to be their making as a band. In November 1982, “Mad World” peaked at number three on the U.K charts and is one of the most enduring hits of the 1980’s to this day.

With a head of steam and masses of momentum, the band’s debut album, “The Hurting”, was released in March 1983 and spent 65 weeks in the album charts, peaking at number one and going platinum with ease. They had a further two top five singles in the U.K with “Change” and a re-recorded and re-released “Pale Shelter”, and the album, along with its three singles, saw high chart placements all over the world. Tears For Fears became one of the hottest bands in the world within the space of a single year, and they had the world at their feet. One would assume that this would be the point that they’d blow it, and truth be told, they nearly did.

Between late 1983 and early 1984, the band released two singles that were more experimental than most were expecting. The first of them “The Way You Are” stalled in the Top 30 and its follow up “Mother’s Talk”, did peak in the Top 20, but its release was delayed when the band had to re-produce the whole single from top to bottom after being unimpressed by the initial results. However, the bands fortunes were sealed in November 1984 with the single “Shout”, was yet another Top Five hit for the group in the U.K, and the album it came from “Songs From The Big Chair”, went to number two on the charts and stayed in the Top Ten for six months.

However, they’d done all that before. What they hadn’t done, up until that point, was make much of a commercial impact in America. “Songs From The Big Chair” did just that on its release in the U.S, hitting the number one spot on the Billboard 200 for five weeks and “Shout” topping the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks the following August. They had officially made it, and ever since then they’ve been one of the most acclaimed bands of the 80’s, with songs like the aforementioned singles and “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” becoming pop standards for generations afterwards. They’re still a pretty unmissable live act to this day, and still come highly recommended.