Riffiter on Aperture

"Aperture" makes you wait 45 seconds before Harry Styles sings a word, and it went to number one anyway. That intro is the best thing about it. The synth sits there and builds, so by the time his voice comes in you're already inside the mood instead of being sold a hook. The first chorus takes almost two minutes to show up, which sounds like a mistake on paper and works in practice, because the verses carry the weight. At over five minutes it never drags. The middle stretch repeats itself a little, and that's the one real complaint. Still, a pop single that trusts people to keep listening is rarer than it should be, and this one earned the patience it asks for.