Harry Styles released his debut, self-titled album on May 12th. Styles is best known for being a member of the boyband One Direction. After the band’s long hiatus and indefinite split, Styles decided to go solo, as did all of his former bandmates, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Liam Payne.

“Harry Styles” is causing a lot of commotion because it’s a rock album. People are surprised by this because of Styles previously being in One Direction, a pop boyband.

Styles released the first single off “Harry Styles,” “Sign of the Times,” on April 7. “Sign of the Times” peaked at number four on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The album itself is doing very well on the charts. According to rollingstone.com, Styles “established a new record for best-selling first week by a British male artist’s debut album on the Billboard 200.”

“Harry Styles” has an intricate mixture of sounds even though it contains only 10 songs. There’s slow, heartfelt songs like “Two Ghosts” and “From the Dining Table.”  Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield said Styles’ has a touch of John Lennon’s voice in “From the Dining Table” and a touch of Jimmy Page in the acoustic guitar. The album also contains “Kiwi” and “Only Angel,” two songs that were a nice surprise to fans because of their “hard rock raunch” sound, as Sheffield called it.

Styles is receiving massive praise from not just his loyal fans, but people who he’s huge fans of like Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. According to the website for the New Music Expression, Mason recalls listening to “Sign of the Times” for the first time on the radio, where the DJ compared Styles’ hit single to Pink Floyd. Mason says he thought to himself  “Yeah, I could play that.” Mason even offered to play drums on Styles’ next record, which Styles replied to with a resounding yes, according to the article.

Styles recently played at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. Styles described his experience playing the iconic venue as “maybe the best night of his life,” according to Steve Appleford on rollingstone.com. What made this night especially memorable was that Styles brought the one and only Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac onto the stage with him, wrote Appleford.

Styles’ success is evident and many fans feel as if he’s the happiest he’s ever been. “Harry Styles” is an amazing debut album that’s been well received by critics, like Rolling Stone for example, who gave the album 4 out of 5 stars.

Unlike Rolling Stone, I’d give “Harry Styles” a well-deserved 5 out of 5 stars because of how shockingly good the songs are. Especially my personal favorites “Woman,” “Only Angel,” “From the Dining Table” and “Meet Me in the Hallway.” This album is a reflection of who Styles truly is as a musician, something he couldn’t show off as much when he was in One Direction. Many fans, including myself, are extremely happy with this album and hope Styles will always release music this excellent.