Permission

I went and saw Billie Eilish’s concert movie - Hit Me Hard and Soft. As expected, it was an inspiring, raw and unfiltered, exactly on brand on Billie! 

Billie Eilish & Harry Styles are two of my favourite musicians. I don’t just love their music; I love them both on many levels. I was thinking about what the two of them have in common and realised that they are both in the business of permission.

After watching the launch of Harry’s new tour and the hype around Billie’s movie, there are loads of similarities. The tears, the tattoos, people who say things like "Harry Styles saved my life" or "Billie Eilish is the only one who gets me”. Their fans feel seen, they feel inspired and what they are buying is permission.

Harry Styles is selling joy. Joy at a time when the world is starving for it.

He runs out on stage in his colourful clothes and the crowd loses their minds. He is demonstrating freedom. He is so completely, unapologetically himself that just being in the room with it feels like a relief.

He wears dresses. He paints his nails. He tells his fans he loves them. He blows kisses. He dances like nobody's watching and everybody's watching and it doesn't matter either way. 

Harry is selling self-expression. The idea that you can be exactly who you are, soft and bold, masculine and feminine, serious and silly, all at once, and the world won't end. In fact, the world will love you for it.

He's also selling joy which sounds simple until you realise how many people are quietly living lives that have had the joy rationed out of them. By expectations. By "act your age." By the relentless performance of being a responsible adult. Harry Styles puts on a feather boa and gives people a moment to breathe out. 

Harry has built an entire universe around the radical act of loving openly. His concerts are not just concerts, they’re permission slips. You are allowed to feel joyful. You are allowed to take up space with your joy. 

People aren't fans of Harry Styles. They're hungry for what he's modelling. 

Billie Eilish does something different, but just as powerful.

She showed up in a world of polished, produced, aspirational pop and she refused. She wore baggy clothes when everyone else wore nothing. She sang about anxiety and depression and body image and heartbreak without cleaning it up or tying it with a bow. She cried in interviews. She talked about her mental and physical health struggles. She put her panic attacks in her music. 

And millions of people felt seen.

What Billie is selling is authenticity. She's also selling the permission to feel. To be sad. To be angry. To be confused. To not be okay and not pretend otherwise. In a world that rewards positivity, productivity, and keeping it together, Billie Eilish made emotional honesty look like an act of courage. Because it is.

Her fans don't just listen to her music. They use it as a container for everything they haven't been allowed to feel anywhere else.

These are two completely different artists with completely different aesthetics, sounds and vibes. But the same underlying currency. People are craving permission. Permission to be joyful. Permission to be sad. Permission to be weird, or loud, or soft, or broken, or fully alive. Permission to feel what they feel without having to justify, manage, or minimise it.

This isn't just a pop culture observation. It's a human one. Because the same thing is true in every room I walk into as a speaker. The moment someone says the thing that everyone else was thinking but nobody was saying, the relief in the room is palpable. The gratitude is real.

We are all, constantly, waiting for someone to go first.

Harry goes first with joy. Billie goes first with pain. And millions of people follow along. Not because they're copying, but because they were finally given permission to be where they already were.