When creative people spend extended periods in Berlin, it can have a variety of consequences: Some world stars have been inspired by the city to push themselves to new heights — for example the British musician David Bowie, who recorded his album “Heroes” (1977) at the Kreuzberg Hansa Studios. Others have not always benefited from the city with its seemingly inexhaustible, legal and illegal pleasures.
What might lure the British pop star Harry Styles to Berlin has been a regular feature of Berlin’s local press over the past three years, sometimes even the subject of international pop-news. Since his artistic emancipation from the boy band One Direction, the 31-year-old operates at the level of today’s biggest. For his gender-fluid stage outfits and LGBTQ activism, he is not only passionately adored by a diverse audience but also appreciated.
His three solo albums “Harry’s House“ (2022), “Fine Line“ (2019) and “Harry Styles“ (2017) have reached No. 1 on the charts in many countries, and his nostalgic synth-pop hit “As It Was” is regarded by the US magazine Billboard as the “Number-One Song of 2022.”
Only: Musically Styles has remained inconspicuous since then. Very to the annoyance of his fans, who with their colorful costumes and their enthusiasm for Styles’ Peace-and-Love messages could easily be mistaken for modern hippies, yet they do not lack investigative zeal: In Berlin cafés, Spätis and also in the notorious techno club Berghain the musician was sighted in 2025. The Bild wanted in spring to learn whether Styles had acquired a property in the capital; the British sensation machine The Sun wrote that he was staying in the capital, just like Bowie, at the Hansa Studios and was working on an album.
Top Performances Remained Athletic
What is certain is that the singer took part in the Berlin Marathon in September under a false name. Here fans then had reason to become tense, because: completing the distance in a top time suggested that Styles in Berlin might be pursuing not musical peak performances but rather a classic Ü30 male-midlife crisis.
From a diverse audience, he is not only adored but also valued
Last Saturday changed the mood: “Forever, Forever” is a video the artist posted on his YouTube channel, and since then his youngsters have approached it with missionary zeal. It shows moments from the closing concert of Styles’ World Tour 2023 in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia. Fans camp on a meadow, talk about their icon, dance, laugh. “L’ho scritto per lei,” Styles says on stage, “I wrote this for you,” before he begins an instrumental piano piece and then offers a grateful farewell. Since then, Harries fans have been puzzling over whether a comeback or a farewell is coming.
Fans can take some comfort in knowing that beginnings and endings in today’s pop business are commercially flexible. The commercially brilliant idea of framing creative changes as the start of a new era that opens the sales season for records, merchandise and tickets has not only Taylor Swift to thank for it, but many others as well.
He has certainly earned enough. After three years of guessing, his fans too deserve a little certainty. They are left hoping that Harry Styles has tolerated Berlin well.
