Harry Styles: ‘Harry’s House’ Review
7.9
GENRE: Pop
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2022Harry Styles is a paradoxical phenomenon. As cutting-edge as his image may be—his looks vary from Gucci tailored coats to red Adidas sneakers to pink silk shirts to rainbow sequin jumpsuits—he continuously comes across as your jogger neighbor who takes off his headphones to say hello to you in the elevator. His music, on the other hand, is more conservative: His self-titled debut album had 70s classic rock-influenced songs, and his sophomore album, Fine Line, had elements of folk, psychedelic pop, indie pop, and soul while being predominantly a pop rock record. In his own style, Styles surprised the general public when his music shifted from highly pop-driven songs with other One Direction members to rock-influenced solo tunes that gave him a stage to shine on his own. With his third effort, Harry’s House, Styles wants to become your friend, no longer providing us with the sometimes shocking, sometimes pleasing surprises provided in his previous work.
Harry’s House exhibits an artist way too comfortable with not being ambitious. Instead, he’s more concerned about being flirty and making you feel good. “I could cook an egg on you,” he jokes about how hot you are on “Music for a Sushi Restaurant,” the smooth jazz and ‘70s funk track that gets the album started. This is not Styles’ first rodeo with metaphors involving food: his 2019’s hit single “Watermelon Sugar,” which features lyrics supposedly about oral sex, earned him his first grammy in 2021, and he had a song called “Kiwi” on his debut album. We enter Harry’s house to find him laying in bed and talking on the phone on “Late Night Talk,” a ‘70s funk and R&B track he debuted live at his Coachella set in April. Producers Tyler Johnson and Kid Harpoon do a solid job —the track has beginning, middle, and ending—and the glossy keyboards make the song dulcet, but its chorus being cut short salts the experience.
The niceties continue through “Grapejuice,” where Styles tries to charm you into a date (“a bottle of rouge, just me and you”). He’s just being nice, and the track leaves it at that. When we begin to think that we’ve got Styles’ number and know how the rest of the album is going to unfold, he grabs us by the shoulders and shakes us with the soft-rock “As it Was,” the earworm first single that has been used in the stories of everyone on your Instagram. Styles’ sorrowful tone and wistful lines about loneliness and life changes are masked by the synth-layered upbeat instrumentals, which not a lot of people seem to get when editing their happy TikTok videos. Though lyrically sad, “As it Was” is the most gratifying moment of Harry’s House and perhaps of Styles’ entire career—he’s more famous than ever but stills has moments of gloominess; admitting that on an ‘80s influenced number #1 hit seems like the way to do it these days.
Having dated Taylor Swift many years ago, Styles still has to dodge questions about their relationship: the singer had to clarify that there is no parallel between his “Daylight” and Swift’s song of the same name. Letting gossipers down doesn’t take the dreamy atmosphere away from the track; “Daylight” reminisces of an old relationship, and lyrics like, “I’m on the roof/you’re in your airplane seat” are all-too-familiar to us, nostalgic people. He lets the guitars and drums progress haywire for a whole minute , bringing the song to a climactic ending. The groovy “Cinema” makes Styles comfortable letting out some high notes, and the heavy bass conducts his lines very nicely. Yes, Harry, I think you’re cool, too. On “Keep Driving,” the singer orders “maple syrup, coffee/pancakes for two/hash brown, egg yolk” accompanied by long drives, wine glasses, and staying strong while the world falls to pieces. But everything can crack, and immediately after, “Satellite” touches on a relationship gone cold: his lover is distant, and he doesn’t know how to reconnect. The song ends without resolution amidst noisy drums, synths, and loose vocals.
Harry’s House was designed to romanticize our delusions of a relationship with Styles, and every single track on it follows suit. The album is a blend of synthesizers and pianos planned to sound like a comfort record, never reaching beyond its purpose. At a glance, the LP sounds like Styles’ immediate solution to enhancing the setlist of his extensive Love On Tour—you can bet singing the same 20 songs gets boring after 50 nights. But the timid highs of Harry’s House make up for its dull moments. You see, not every record needs the affectionate gospel choir of Fine Line’s “Lights Up” to be a career-defining moment. Sometimes, such moments come from establishing yourself as an artist people go back to on their ride home from work. Style’s public persona, which before seemed too carefully crafted to show authenticity, now looks genuine—maybe he really is this all too nice of a guy. And that’s great because, at the end of the day, we want to be friends with him.
Listen to Harry’s House:
