Never thought we’d see a diva-squid version of Harry Styles — but the music video for “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” surely gave us the perfect visual and much, much more.
On Oct. 26, a short trailer of a bearded and glistening Styles was released announcing the official video’s arrival early Thursday morning. The new visual treatment sees the English singer transformed into a rugged merman — with tentacles and marbled scales to match — as struggles to avoid becoming the next plate-up.
After a trio of men discovers squid-Styles, they haul him into the back of their van and load him into — surprise — the back of a sushi restaurant. Dismayed and sweaty, squid-Styles ends up on the kitchen counter where he watches as the room cuts and chops up bits of fish and other ingredients to serve.
Not surprisingly, he finds a way to stay alive by offering his talents as a singing spectacle. Naturally, the restaurant workers take roles as groupies who wash and shine Styles’ tail at his every command.
“Can I touch your tail?,” one customer asks before Styles slaps him with his tentacle tail. And although a glitter-covered Styles draws crowds and takes over the spotlight, he eventually ends up back on the kitchen counter when his voice fails mid-performance.
Styles has previously explained that the idea for “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” came to him while sitting with a producer at a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles. “One of our songs [from came on from the last album [‘Fine Line’], and I kind of said, 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 said. “And then as this song started being made, I kind of just said, ‘Music at a sushi restaurant.’”
This is the third (not counting the DIY James Corden-directed video for “Daylight“) music video for Styles’ chart-topping album “Harry’s House,” which was released in May 2022. The first and lead single was “As It Was,” which has managed to take the Billboard chart by storm logging the longest No. 1 streak on the Hot 100 for a song by a British artist, or by an act with no other featured artists.
