Hey, at least he’s eating healthy.

It’s a throwback. A love letter to those adult contemporary staples of soft rock found on the AM radio dial in the ’70s. Harry Styles gives it a sexy, silky pass with “Watermelon Sugar,” a song that, had the Bee Gees sung it in 1977, the kids would be making fun of its fruity lyrics and referring to it as “yacht rock.”

I say that’s a good thing.

Released in May 2020, “Watermelon Sugar” shot up the charts with its soft rock, pop-funk wall of sound and tropical imagery, complete with music video featuring Styles―dressed like a cross between a late-flower power ’70s hipster and a ‘ragged 90s Britpop star―frolicking on the beach with a bevy of bikini-clad beauties enjoying the, uhh, fruits of their labor (have you ever seen such seductive watermelon eating?).

The song, apparently rumored to be inspired by a book titled In Watermelon Sugar, is also rumored to be about Styles’ ex-girlfriend (aren’t all songs?). And what about this lyric: “I want your belly and that summer feelin’ / I don’t know if I could ever go without“? Do watermelons have bellies? I suppose they do; but hey, it’s an analogy, so let’s just go with it.

Styles has come a long way since One Direction, and in toto, he accomplishes a satisfying, sexy-smooth vocal with instrumentation that’s in my wheelhouse, complete with horns to seal the deal. And I hear that the rest of the album that grew the “Watermelon Sugar” seed, Fine Line (2019), has a lot more of this vibe.

If that’s true, I might just dive in deeper. After I finish this melon.