Dear listeners,
On Friday, Harry Styles released his latest album of pleasantly breezy, mildly rakish pop, under the cheeky name “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.” The LP is, more or less, what it says on the tin: a collection of electro-pop songs that consider sensuous entanglements and doomed relationships, often with beats and bass lines that beckon the listener to the dance floor. It’s the fourth album Styles has released as a solo artist, and its lived-in maturity suggests how far he has come since his days in the exuberantly youthful boy band One Direction.
In honor of Styles’s new album — and as a very belated sequel to an Amplifier playlist I once made of girl group artists who later went solo — I’ve compiled a collection of tunes by former boy band members who found success on their own.
Leaving a beloved group to fly solo can be risky, especially when the artist is trying to establish himself as an adult who has moved beyond his teen-pop past. It’s a delicate balance: You want to assert your maturity without alienating your core audience or resorting to inauthentic shock. But Styles has handled the transition well, and this playlist puts him in a lineage of others who have done something similar in the past, whether that’s Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake or a slightly edgier English pop rogue, Robbie Williams. It also contains a solo hit from another member of One Direction, but you’ll have to listen to find out which one.
Warning: This playlist contains vast quantities of “T.R.L.”-era nostalgia. Listener discretion is advised.
Woke up in New York City,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Harry Styles: “American Girls”
One of my favorite songs on “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.” is its wistful, lightly melancholic second single, on which Harry Styles opines with a mixture of admiration and envy, “My friends are in love with American girls.” It’s likely to go over big with the titular demographic.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Michael Jackson: “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough”
The youngest and most successful brother to break out of the Jackson 5 came into his own as a solo star with his 1979, Quincy Jones co-produced album “Off the Wall” — an LP that could have been named “Disco All the Time.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Justin Timberlake featuring Clipse: “Like I Love You”
When he was 21, in 2002, the cherubic-voiced, ramen-haired Justin Timberlake stepped out of formation with ’N Sync and embarked on a solo career that began with the hit-filled R&B album “Justified.” The first single was this fleet-footed, Neptunes-produced blast of Spanish guitar and crooned charisma, which garnered major grown-up cred for featuring a verse from one of the hottest rap duos of the time (and, arguably, this time), Clipse.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Bobby Brown: “Every Little Step”
The former New Edition member Bobby Brown was only 19 when he released his second solo album, the wildly successful “Don’t Be Cruel,” in 1989. That LP spawned five Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, helped popularize the sound of new jack swing and, in this effervescent hit’s quintessentially 1989 music video, introduced the world to the dance known as the Roger Rabbit.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Ricky Martin: “Livin’ La Vida Loca”
The turn of the millennium: You really had to be there. Ricky Martin, a onetime member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, set the entire world en fuego with this Spanglish smash. If you were alive in 1999, you may never need to hear this song again. And if you weren’t, well, kids, you know that guy who sang about Hawaii during Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance? Check out this deep cut.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Robbie Williams: “Millennium”
Years after he left the ’90s English boy band Take That, but years before a C.G.I. chimpanzee played him in a biopic (I still can’t believe that happened), Robbie Williams broke out on his own with some hits that satirically skewered the idea of superstardom (like this lush single) and others that indulged in its more syrupy tropes (the soaring ballad “Angels”). Once again, the turn of the millennium: You really had to be there.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Jordan Knight: “Give It to You”
The prodigal New Kid on the Block Jordan Knight observed the time-honored tradition of releasing a solo single that was way raunchier than what he could have gotten away with in his boy band with “Give It to You,” a Y2K-pop bop written with Robin Thicke, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. This one goes out to anyone who ever voted for a video on “T.R.L.” via a dial-up internet connection and hoped in vain to see your comments scrolling by on the next episode.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Niall Horan: “Slow Hands”
Probably my favorite solo single by a former member of One Direction who is not named Harry Styles, this soft-rock tune was a highlight of the group’s sole Irishman Niall Horan’s 2017 debut album, “Flicker.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. Paul McCartney: “Maybe I’m Amazed”
I kid … sort of. Because who’s to say the Beatles weren’t a boy band, at least in their matching-suits-and-mop-top days? There’s a case to be made! Surely one thing we can all agree on, though, is that Paul McCartney’s 1970 solo album “McCartney” assured that this boy was going to be all right on his own, even without a little help from his friends.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“Harry Styles and 8 More Boy Band Stars Who Went Solo” track list Track 1: Harry Styles, “American Girls” Track 2: Michael Jackson, “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” Track 3: Justin Timberlake featuring Clipse, “Like I Love You” Track 4: Bobby Brown, “Every Little Step” Track 5: Ricky Martin, “Livin’ La Vida Loca” Track 6: Robbie Williams, “Millennium” Track 7: Jordan Knight, “Give It to You” Track 8: Niall Horan, “Slow Hands” Track 9: Paul McCartney, “Maybe I’m Amazed”
Bonus Tracks
Editor Caryn here! I just wanted to point you to two more great stories about Harry Styles’s return: Grayson Haver Currin’s profile of Kid Harpoon, the songwriter and producer who’s become one of the pop star’s closest collaborators; and Shaad D’Souza’s notebook looking at the landscape Styles left behind four years ago — and the inheritors now coming up from behind.
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