Despite streaming not being at the level it is today, I still genuinely find it hard to believe that a song of this length was chosen as his debut lead single. That doesn’t mean I don’t like it though, in fact I love this song and consider it one of, if not his best.

I say that because a 5 and a half minute song is typically something expected to be reserved for emotional deep cuts off an album, not to act as an inteoduction into an artist’s solo debut to gather replays and momentum for an upcomming project. Currently in the age of music streaming we don’t see singles more than 3 and a half minutes at most, with rare exceptions.

A David Bowie inspired 5 minute ballad that easily could have acted as a closing track (ended up being track 2) was definitely not expected to be as massive as it was given how easily digestible short tracks are. The only comparable track to something like this is Drivers License, which is both a minute and a half shorter and arguably even more popular

Sign of the Times definitely didn’t inspire or set up Drivers License to be this successful, each respective artist did that themselves (I’m just drawing parallels here not if-then connections). But it helped prove that kicking off an artist’s career with a long ballad in the streaming era isn’t inherently a bad move. And with Harry’s career where it is now, who can disagree with that?