We never expected to see a diva-squid version of Harry Styles, but the music video for “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” provided us with the perfect visual and so much more.
On Oct. 26, a short trailer of a beardless and gleaming Styles was released, announcing the arrival of the official video early Thursday morning. The English singer is transformed into a rugged merman, complete with tentacles and marbled scales, in the new visual treatment, as he struggles to avoid becoming the next plate-up.
After squid-Styles is discovered, a trio of men drags him into the back of their van and loads him into — surprise! — the back of a sushi restaurant. Squid-Styles, dismayed and sweaty, ends up on the kitchen counter, where he watches as the room cuts and chops up bits of fish and other ingredients for serving.
Unsurprisingly, he finds a way to stay alive by performing as a singing spectacle. Naturally, the restaurant employees play the role of groupies, washing and shining Styles’ tail at his every command.
“Can I touch your tail?” a customer inquires before Styles slaps him across the face with his tentacle tail. And, while a glitter-covered Styles draws crowds and steals the show, he eventually returns to the kitchen counter when his voice fails mid-performance.
Styles previously stated that the inspiration for “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” struck him while sitting with a producer at a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles. “One of our songs from the last album [‘Fine Line’] came on, and I was like, ‘This is really strange music for a sushi restaurant,’ and then I was like, ‘Oh, that would be a really fun album title,'” Styles explained. “And then, as this song was being written, I just thought, ‘Music at a sushi restaurant.'”
This is the third music video for Styles’ chart-topping album “Harry’s House,” which was released in May 2022 (excluding the DIY James Corden-directed video for “Daylight”). The first and lead single, “As It Was,” took the Billboard chart by storm, logging the longest No. 1 streak on the Hot 100 for a song by a British artist or an act with no other featured artists.