Harry's House


Harry's House is the third studio album by the English singer and songwriter Harry Styles, released on 20 May 2022 by Erskine and Columbia Records. The album was largely written and recorded during 2020 and 2021 and has been noted as Styles' most introspective work. Inspired by 1970s Japanese city pop, Harry's House is a synth-pop, new wave, pop rock and pop-funk album.
The album debuted with the best first-week sales in Styles' career. It debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart with 113,000 album-equivalent units, becoming the fastest-selling and best-selling album of 2022 in the country. It also debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 521,500 album-equivalent units, including 330,000 album sales. It debuted at number one in various other countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
Harrys House was met with critical acclaim for its production. It was supported by the singles "As It Was", "Late Night Talking", "Music for a Sushi Restaurant", and "Satellite"; the first of which debuted atop the UK and US charts, becoming Styles' second solo number-one song in both countries. Besides the chart-topper "As It Was", three other songs were concurrently in the top 10 of the US Billboard Hot 100: "Late Night Talking", "Music for a Sushi Restaurant" and "Matilda", making Styles the first British solo artist to achieve this feat. The album was featured on numerous 2022 year-end rankings and nominated for several awards, and Rolling Stone included it in their 2023 revision of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. At the 65th Grammy Awards, the album won Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

Background and composition

In an interview with Apple Music, Styles explained how he came up with the album title: "The album is named after Haruomi Hosono, he had an album in the '70s called, and I spent that chunk in Japan; I heard that record and I was like 'I love that. It'd be really fun to make a record called Harry's House'." The initial idea behind the album came when Styles wanted to take the title in a literal way so he could make an acoustic extended play recorded at his own house. The album is considered Styles's most introspective of his career thus far; according to Styles the central concept of 'house' is a metaphor for the inside of his mind rather than a "geographical location". Speaking on the album's concept, Styles said "It was much more of an internal thing… it felt like it took on this whole new meaning and it was about, like: imagine, it's a day in my house, what do I go through? A day in my mind, what do I go through? In my house I'm playing fun music, sad music, I'm playing this, I'm playing that. It's a day in the life." Styles was also inspired by a road trip he took through Italy in his deceased stepfather's car, where Styles listened to his old jazz CDs and "felt like did a family thing" while on the drive.
The album was largely written and recorded during 2020 and 2021. "Boyfriends", however, was initially written during the final week of Fine Line recording. Speaking to Zane Lowe, Styles said of the track: "Boyfriends was written right at the end of Fine Line. I finished the album and we touched on it a last time, there was like an extra week to write some stuff. I recorded "Adore You", "Treat People With Kindness", and "Lights Up" and at the end of that session everyone left, and I started writing "Boyfriends" and it almost felt like "Ok, there's a version where we get this ready to put on ", and I think there was something about that just felt like "It's just gonna have its time, so like, let's not rush to get it done." And we did so many versions of it." Musician Ben Harper is credited playing the guitar on the track and had to ask for the guitar he gifted his daughter back to borrow to play it on the song. "Boyfriends" lyrically discusses the experience of romantic relationships in which "people don't treat each other very nicely sometimes" that Styles observed in his sister and friends when dating other people as well as his own experiences with dating.
"Little Freak" was also initially written in 2019 during Styles' trip to Tokyo. Producer Kid Harpoon in an interview with Rolling Stone stated the track was "actually produced and mixed in a whole different version for Fine Line, but it just didn't feel right." The track was written and made in a hotel room in Tokyo on "bad rental gear" according to Styles and went through many iterations before reaching the final product. In the album's liner notes, the song is partially credited as being recorded in 'Tom's Room', referring to Kid Harpoon.
The first song to be written for the album sessions was "Late Night Talking", which was written the day Styles, the band and the producers arrived at Shangri-La studios in Malibu. "Music For A Sushi Restaurant" was written early in the album process and originally considered to be the album title. Speaking to NPR, Styles said "I was in a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles with my producer and one of our songs came on from the last album, 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. And then as this as this - as the songs started being made, I kind of just said "Music For A Sushi Restaurant."
"Matilda" is titled after the lead character from a book of the same name, written by Roald Dahl. The song was inspired by a relationship Styles had with someone who was going through difficulty. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Styles stated he wrote the song to show he was listening: "Sometimes it's just about listening. I hope that's what I did here. If nothing else, it just says, 'I was listening to you'". "Daylight" was written as an all-nighter project as Styles was worried the track would not be finished otherwise. Styles stated the song was about "an infatuation of chasing troubled things.”
"Cinema" was Styles's "fun" track which he started writing while being on a treadmill. The album features John Mayer on lead guitar on both "Cinema" and "Daydreaming". Of "Daydreaming", Styles' collaborator Tyler Johnson first sent Styles a voice note while he was driving from Palm Springs to LA called 'idea on the 101 rough' that kickstarted the track. Mayer was working in the studio across the corridor from Styles and Styles asked him to listen to the song for a breakdown section, he grabbed one of Mitch Rowland's guitars and played to the track.
"Love of My Life" is Styles's way of showing his love and appreciation to England and home. Styles stated he wrote the song at Sony Music Entertainment CEO Rob Stringer's house and features Stringer's ringtone in the background at his One Night Only concert for Apple Music: Live.
Musically, Harrys House takes influence from Japan's 1970s-80s city pop genre, and primarily features synth-pop, new wave, pop rock and pop-funk styles, with elements of R&B.

Release and promotion

Styles announced the title of his upcoming third studio album as Harry's House on 23 March 2022, unveiling its artwork, a 40-second trailer and the album's release date of 20 May 2022. In the trailer, Styles steps on the podium of a theatre and grins while a "house façade" rises near him and reversed synthesisers play in the background; the audio would later be revealed to be a backwards version of the album's closing track, "Love of My Life". Joni Mitchell, whose 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns featured a track called "Harry's House / Centerpiece", tweeted that she "love the title". Upon announcing the album, Styles set up an interactive website and a new Twitter account. The messages published included "you are home" and "in this world, it's just us, you know it's not the same as it was". The album was released on 20 May 2022 through Erskine and Columbia.
On 15 April 2022, during his Coachella headlining performance, Styles performed "As It Was" live for the first time, in addition to two then-unreleased songs from the album, "Boyfriends" and "Late Night Talking".
One month before the album's release, Harry's House was reportedly leaked on Twitter in its entirety. Sony, owner of Columbia Records, publicly condemned the leak in a since deleted tweet.
On 26 May 2022, in a segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Styles and James Corden filmed a music video for the song "Daylight" directed by the latter, in which they visit an apartment belonging to some fans. Both the music video and segment were released on the show's YouTube channel on 28 May 2022.

Singles

"As It Was" was released as the lead single of Harry's House on 1 April 2022, having been previously announced on 28 March 2022. "As It Was" debuted atop the UK and US charts, becoming his second solo number one single in both countries, and reached the top of Australian and Canadian charts.
"Late Night Talking" was released to US pop radio on 21 June 2022, as the album's second single. It reached the top five on American, Australian, British and Canadian charts.
"Music for a Sushi Restaurant" was released to adult contemporary radio on 3 October 2022, as the album's third single. It peaked in the top ten on American, Australian, British and Canadian charts prior to its release as a single.
"Satellite" was released as the album's fourth single on 3 May 2023.

Critical reception

Harry's House was met with critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 83 based on 26 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim"—Styles' highest rated album.
Veteran critic Robert Christgau applauded the album's musical fluidity while stating, "Even more remarkable is the way the lyrics this soundscape cushion and accentuate achieve a metaphorical reach and narrative concreteness truly rare in megapop." Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that the album "ticks a lot of the right boxes and has abundant charm, which makes it a perfect reflection of the pop star who made it". Reviewing the album for DIY, Emma Swann felt that while Styles alternately spends time "exploring vivid lyrical micro-vignettes" and then "obfuscating" the narrative on the album, he is "also not scared of being secondary to the song; a lesson it's taken many others far longer to learn". Neil Z. Yeung from AllMusic stated that "Harry's House is what happens when Styles steps out of the spotlight to live his life. And despite the fact that there's nothing as immortal as 'Watermelon Sugar' to be found, this album, as a whole, has solid bones and is sturdy enough to last."