Album Review: REVIEW: Harry Styles Delivers One Of The Year’s Best Albums With ‘Harry’s House’

Harry’s House, the third solo album by Harry Styles, has the type of glorious mood swings that we’ve all felt over the last couple of years. As the album artwork suggests, Harry’s House is a bit all over the place in terms of logic, but that’s its joy. Famous for his refusal to be labelled personally or professionally, Styles’ energy bursts from the speakers in lots of directions. Or, should that be, in more than One Direction?

Sorry.

This album talks about “side boob” in its lyrics. Some kid called “Quincy Jones” is listed with a writing credit. It also has some of the best dance highs and most beautiful folkie sweeps. Maybe this is Styles promising himself that he’d grab life hard once we were all together again. Or maybe 2020 hit him so hard in the ‘who gives a fuck’ glands that he’s paying even less attention to what other people expect. Either way, we are the winners.

TRACK BY TRACK

Music For A Sushi Restaurant swirls and builds into a massive opening banger. With pumping brass, hugely singable backing vocals and a chorus that is basically just the word “mine” sung over and over with catchy abandon, it’s a track that Daft Punk and Prince would happily claim. It oozes happiness and literally repeats proclamations of love. Playing it loud might get you kicked out of your local Sushi Train, but it’s well worth the risk.

Late Night Talking directs the listener to some after-dinner moves. Previewed at Coachella recently there is a driving old school big band sound without being a completely nostalgic take. Again, it’s the energy that’ll make you move, but with a lightness of touch that acknowledges your tummy’s still probably full of sushi.

Grapejuice adds to the suite of fruit-themed songs in Styles’ backcat. Here Harry sings about having “the grapejuice blues” – really just that good ol’ fashioned feeling of looking back with a few regrets. It’s a heartbreaker without being a tear jerker, although there are some lyrical teases for those who read pop music as an autobiography.

Megasingle As It Was bursts out with “C’mon Harry, we want to say goodnight to you!”, and with that lovely little voice and big keys there’s something very ‘80s about it all (Google the mash up with Take On Me – delightful!). But this is 2022 – and the lyrics remind that even Harry’s been housebound lately - “Go home, get ahead, light-speed internet”- that’s why As It Was works so well. The song calls out that stuff’s pretty crazy right now, while reminding that getting too hung up on the before-times won’t help in moving on – you know, it’s not the same as it was. 

Daylight backs it up with a more varied sound, hooky-as chorus and middle 8 that will draw out the best air drummers around. Come for OTT links between verses and stay for the lyrics about being a bluebird and dipping someone in honey. Because, again, why not? Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Now onto Little Freak, a bit dirtier and more confessional than anything so far but with lots to unpack. Definitely slowing the pace and in the sound palate there’s nuance and deliberate ambiguities here that are just lovely. He repeats a line about appreciating “your delicate point of view” – is that Styles being patronising, or is he being genuinely curious about things that don’t easily fit into boxes? Either way, he does apologise – singing later, “I disrespected you / Jumped in feet first / Karma rules.”

Matilda is one of the best songs Styles, or anyone, has released in a long time. An old school ‘story song’, this is folk of the highest and prettiest order. In the lyric Harry’s House is offered as a safe space, offering comfort to anyone who needs to leave behind a build their life again with family and friends who give them the love they deserve. A beautiful lesson in allyship and completely gorgeous musically, to boot. 

Cinema follows and the pace and focus split again. This is a dirty party song – there’s no two ways about it – and a damn fine one too. Come for the pseudo disco but stay for the extended outro where Styles proclaims “I bring the pop” while “you got the cinema”. Also, read into it what you need to about his rumoured relationships – no matter who inspired it Styles steals the show.

Daydreaming launches with a sample of Ain’t We Funkin’ Now by The Brothers Johnson, and its anthemic hook launches Harry’s dream back to 1970s dancefloor. Blasting out a chant of “padiya pa pa pa pa pa”, it’s clear Quincy and co are at their best, lifted here to pride of place. With this track linking dreaming from earlier in the album there’s some more big falsetto patches too (just because he can?) and riffs that are as familiar as heck. Again, not a rip-off, but damn a good homage.

Keep Driving is, as the name suggests, a driving song in theme and approach, but with some quirky detours. The gentleness in the refrain (“Should we just keep driving”) is coupled with the weird list of random bits and pieces that take over towards the end – “tea with cyborgs”, “science and edibles”, “side boob”, “life hacks going viral” – dunno really what it means but proof that the accolades haven’t stolen Styles’ sense of humour.

Satellite channels Bowie’s Starman and Elton’s Rocket Man in the ‘only for legends’ crossover that is space-meets-pop. With echoey keys and eerie vowel-driven vocals to enter, its beginnings are relatively sedate until he really gets to spin. Also, there’s some hard vocoder action midway, met with some glorious falsetto to end. This one will be a cracker live – damn I can’t wait to see the outfits that will accompany it.

Boyfriends begins with what sounds like the recording played backwards, then continues on with a simple basic acoustic and tight harmony base. Pretty similar to the Coachella preview of the song, the recording adds strings in the bridge and recalls not just Styles’ well documented love of strong ‘70s folk like Stevie Nicks and Joni Mitchell, but also the pretty melancholy of Don McLean’s Vincent.

Finale Love Of My Life again combines escapism and reality. Again, there are shades of Joni, this time in the lyric “Don’t know it’s lost ‘til you find it” (a nice twist on “what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”) and the reality that we all still know (“we don’t really like what’s on the news, but it’s on all the time”). Like Joni though, the truth bombs are delivered with a melody that soars in just the right way. Is the album’s title Harry’s House a reference to Joni’s song of that name too? Here the sound and approach are so familiar it’s easy to singalong in the first listen, but it’s somehow not derivative. With a big distorted bassline to counter a single vocal line and catchy-as-fuck melody, this track leaves you like any house party should – tired but looking forward to the next time.

Harry’s House is out this Friday, May 20, via Columbia/Erskine Records/Sony Music Entertainment Australia. You can pre-order and pre-save here.