Let The Light In

On Harry Styles' New Single: Aperture

In an interview with BBC Radio One and BBC Radio Two Harry Styles dove deep into what his new album “Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally” would be about, as well as the inspiration behind the new hit single “Aperture.”

Styles mentioned that this was the last song that he and his team had created for the album, and it felt like a celebration meant to wrap up the newest discoveries in his Year of Yes.

Any fan who attended the Love On Tour shows remembers the feeling of dancing in the pit, waiting with strangers, and creating bonds that one could never have imagined from across state lines.

My best friend, Liza, and I even took a two week trip out to Austin, Texas to see him, granting ourselves a mini-vacation and exploring an area we had never been to!

Then came “Forever, Forever,” a homage to the fans that made Love On Tour feel special - a ballad Harry himself wrote, and performed for his last night of the tour.

In that moment, we as fans got to relive the joys of being an audience member for a musician we adore.

I believe it was the creation of that homage that led Styles to realize something many musicians miss out on when they reach his level of fame: being a fan is fun.

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Harry Styles had never been in the position to be an audience member prior, especially because he had been creating music since his One Direction days (when he was a teenager).

Back then, fandoms grew tenfold, and many fans would follow their artists to wide lengths, creating harassment and stalking issues in the process.

The internet has only grown and Stan Twitter became the adult version of Fandom teens who obsessed over the next Teen Beat issue.

Imagine being a teenage boy and feeling the need to lock yourself in a hotel room because of the fear that if you go out there, something could happen to you.

Whether that was a legitimate fear of his in his own mind, or a subconscious one placed on him by his own management, the fear was there.

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Since turning 31, and entering a new decade of his life, Styles decided that this past year he would start saying ‘yes’ to a bunch of experiences that he had missed out on in his earlier years.

What would seem very mundane and basic to the average person, became exciting and new for him.

Some of the things Styles enjoyed doing was going to coffee shops more often and walking around his town, or city, and experiencing local happenings that he normally would’ve missed driving down the street from one location to the next.

In Harry Styles’ Year of Yes, he had gone to two LCD Soundsystem concerts, which moved his new sound in the direction it is heading.

The best realization he made was that if he never branched out and tried these things, he would’ve never experienced different environments of music

As someone who went to EDC Orlando for the first time in 2019, I had never heard some of the EDM music that I was hearing at that time, which introduced me to so many new artists (who are now my favorites) because of one event that I decided to say yes to on a whim.

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How I Feel Listening to Aperture

Many of us need to reestablish a “Year of Yes” for our own selves.

We went through a similar period of isolation when Covid hit.

After being used to staying locked away for so long, when the experiences came back into our lives, we almost felt like we were too old to go experience them.

Those of us who graduated during Covid at 21 and then entered back into the world at 23 or 24 feel aged out of the scene.

It’s important to note that Harry just turned 31, so that means that this transition period of his life was from 29 into 30, and solidified at 31.

He is living his best life starting his thirties, and I think it’s an eye-opener for many of us who are in our mid-20s and are afraid of enjoying life the way we used to.

We need to realise that this is only the beginning of a new transition period for us and we can say yes to things and experience life.

It’s only us in our heads holding us back from saying “yes” more often.

You learn from fears if you experience them; you learn what you enjoy, you learn what you don’t enjoy, but until you step out there you will assume the worst.

You’re holding yourself back from discovering new forms of love and joy.

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This new album will be a giant celebration into the aspect of becoming an audience member, with the world as your venue.

Become the audience for the chef cooking your meal, the audience for the local florist at the Green Market, the audience for the landscapers perfecting local gardens, or even just the audience for the world’s creations - just explore!

You can choose to either interact and dance in the pit, or you can choose to stay home and hope someone livestreams with great quality, but the choice is still yours: live life or let it pass you by in pictures and posts from others.

“Kiss all the time” and enjoy what you know you love, but “disco occasionally” and put yourself in a new environment of pure bliss and exploration.

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