Harry Styles

Few British performers have shaped the wider culture quite like Harry Styles, the English singer, songwriter and actor whose showmanship, artistry and flamboyant fashion have made him a figure of influence far beyond the music itself. His route into the spotlight ran through television: he auditioned alone for The X Factor, was eliminated as a soloist, and was instead placed in a five-piece that became One Direction. Dunkirk, Eternals, Don't Worry Darling and My Policeman later showed a second side of his public life on screen.

The group became one of the best-selling boy bands of all time before an indefinite hiatus in 2016, a pause Styles himself proposed. His self-titled debut solo album arrived in 2017 through Erskine and Columbia Records, led by the UK number-one "Sign of the Times". Fine Line in 2019 set the biggest first-week sales by an English male artist in the United States, and its single "Watermelon Sugar" topped the Billboard Hot 100. Harry's House won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2022, while "As It Was" became the world's biggest single of its year.