INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Harry Styles Sacks Modest Management, Fans Celebrate

By Alan Ewart
Published on: 00:39 PST, Jan 28, 2016

One Direction star Harry Styles has given his fans cause for a huge celebration. It seems that Styles has broken links with Modest Management, the company that has helped to propel One Direction from X-Factor contestants to worldwide superstars. Most of Harry’s fans view Modest as part of an evil triumvirate that has abused the trust of fans and worked Styles and his bandmates to the verge of exhausted collapse. That’s not the only good news where Styles and One Direction are concerned, as reported by the Inquisitr yesterday, Styles has also broken with HJPR, the second part of the fans axis of evil.

All that remains now is for Styles and One Direction to distance themselves from Simon Cowell and Syco. Once that happens, fans will breathe a huge sigh of relief, as it will see the end of a management setup that many believe has been manipulative and uncaring towards Styles and One Direction from day one.

U.K. tabloid the Sun teased fans yesterday saying that they had an exclusive about Styles and later announced that Harry had sacked Modest Management. For the majority of Harry’s fans, the news was no surprise. After all, the suggestion that Styles was about to switch management teams to Irving Azoff was reported by the Inquisitr four weeks ago. While most media outlets focused on whether or not Styles was dating Kendall Jenner, the Inquisitr invited readers to consider that Harry was lining up a management change.

According to the Daily Mail, the Sun claims that Harry’s move shows that the 21-year-old star wants to “completely wash his hands of anything to do with his old band One Direction.” It seems that the usual unnamed “music industry insider” claims that Harry wants to distance himself from Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, and Liam Payne so that he can forge a solo career.

“Harry is done with One Direction. He wants to completely disassociate with the band and that includes any professional connection.

“His new team will be about launching him as a solo superstar by around this time next year so the work is starting now.”

Of course, no one doubts that Styles has the talent, image, and personality to launch an extremely successful solo career, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that a solo career cannot go hand in hand with a continuance of the phenomena that is One Direction.

The fact is that One Direction are going on hiatus specifically to allow Styles and the rest of One Direction to spread their wings by pursuing solo projects. The fact that Harry is putting together a team to help him launch a solo career should be a surprise to no one. That’s how things work for high-profile musicians. Brandon Flowers has done exactly the same thing with his band The Killers. The real surprise would have been Styles not doing this.

Of course, many of Styles fans will raise an eyebrow at the way the story has been covered by the Sun’s Dan Wootton. There are close links between Simon Cowell, HJPR, Modest Management, and the Sun, so it was perhaps inevitable that Styles would be portrayed as being disloyal to his bandmates and to his previous management team.

The reality is that Styles and the rest of One Direction are likely to want a fresh start. For the last five years, Harry and his pals have been on a treadmill that saw a new album and a massive world tour every year. Of course, Styles and One Direction have amassed huge wealth as a result, but the punishing schedule must have been soul destroying.

One Direction’s hiatus gives Harry, Louis, Niall, and Liam the chance to rest, to experiment, and to explore musical styles that they have not considered in the past. It’s an old cliche to say that “a change is as good as a rest,” but for One Direction, this is certainly the case.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that after Harry and the others “do their own thing” for a while they cannot come back together to create more music together with a new freshness and a new direction. Incidentally, there is also nothing to suggest that Harry’s bandmates will not follow him with Azoff management. Fans have been hoping for some time that this would happen.

Irving Azoff is a fierce advocate for the acts he represents, and most fans would suggest that One Direction’s current management setup has been far from that. It is entirely possible that One Direction will follow Harry Styles to work with a totally new team in the future.

[Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images]

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