
There’s something arresting about Harry Styles‘ new NPR Tiny Desk concert.
Perhaps I’m reading into this too much, but living through a pandemic makes working from an office — let alone piling into a crowded gig — feel vaguely menacing. Seeing Styles and his band strum tunes in a crowded workspace is both familiar and foreign. It’s a time capsule from February 2020, an era when fear hadn’t entirely suffused the way we work and live.
But it’s hard to dwell on those fears while a man wearing a baby-blue sweater sings about his crushes. It’s potentially the least threatening thing I can imagine, and Styles seems to fill the broadcaster’s office with a brightness I could certainly use.
Oh, he sounds good, too. Should probably mention that. If you feel like dipping into Styles’ harmless little world for a while, you can do so below — and maybe, hopefully, you can catch him in person when he tours Australia later this year.