Lily Holbrook
It’s a place we never thought we’d find ourselves. Inside the house of Harry Styles.
When Harry’s multi-platinum album Fine Line was released in late 2019, the world was on the cusp of the unthinkable: a universal hiatus leaving all of us with nowhere to go and no one to see.
Never in a million years would we dream that our freedoms would be taken away, with only one place left to find refuge: ourselves.
Nestled in the familiar comfort of England as he learned what it meant to be a son, a brother, and a friend after 12 years on the road, Harry Styles used lockdown much like the rest of us; to pause, perhaps for the first time in his entire adult life.
While his real house remains a place we can only imagine, Harry Styles’ third solo record is the most intimate depiction yet of the place he calls home.
Harry’s House. Out now. pic.twitter.com/ePJrpQajw1
— Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) May 20, 2022
Elegantly understated, Harry’s House doesn’t demand the same level of attention as his earlier music, a sign of an artist that’s matured. Soul-searching and self-aware, he no longer seeks approval and the result is an album full of authenticity; exactly the kind of music he would play in his own house.
Wistful and reflective, the record feels smaller than his last offering, perhaps not surprising for an album made in the familiar four walls of a friends’ countryside home.
Despite its inward focus, the album still draws inspiration from further afield: one such source including a solo drive across Italy. Imagining Harry in a car driving home cross-continent (the real-life inspiration for ‘Keep Driving’) is the perfect backdrop for this album – and listening to it myself cruising down an English road on a sunny Friday evening left me living in the daydream his lyrics describe.
Despite his own admission that this is the record that feels most like himself, no track on the album has quite the same sonic gravity as his earlier efforts. Listen to ‘Adore You’, ‘Golden’ or ‘Watermelon Sugar’ alongside newer tracks like ‘Matilda’, ‘Grapejuice’ or ‘Keep Driving’ and it quickly becomes clear that Harry’s House has a distinctly different sound.
But as he tells Zane Lowe in a recent interview, releasing new music doesn’t mean the old material ceases to exist…and Fine Line will never stop being there whenever we want to go back.
FINE LINE . THE ALBUM . DEC 13 pic.twitter.com/ARzqYds8Vn
— Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) November 4, 2019
If Fine Line felt like more of a glittering stage performance, Harry’s House is its calmer acoustic counterpart. While it may not fill stadiums with the same electric energy as its predecessor*, Harry’s House is the perfect dreamy accompaniment to evenings sat around a fire, guitar in hand, in the comfort of home.
Admittedly, watching his live Big Weekend performance on iPlayer, did make me slightly re-evaluate my previous thoughts… the energy in that Coventry crowd is indisputable, highlighting the fizzing live potential for his ineffable third record. It proves Harry can do it all.
Overall, Fine Line made me feel things. So does Harry’s House, but in a way that makes me turn inwards on myself. Harry’s solo music is a magical kind of melancholy, a long way from the pop anthems of his 1D days as he makes the transition into a more alternative style of writing. He doesn’t care about mainstream appeal anymore, a reality that would have once felt inconceivable for a man exposed to more than a decade of boyband conditioning.
Harry’s focus on physical connection has long been evident in his discography: aside from ‘Watermelon Sugar’, new track ‘Daylight’ invites us to engage the senses in his exploration of the hungry human condition: “You’d be the spoon, dip you in honey so I can be sticking to you”.
The physicality of experience is not the only area of exploration for Styles. From cocaine to rooftops, Harry takes a particular interest in the concept of being high – whether through substance or the feeling of being physically and emotionally untethered: “I’m on the roof” (‘Daylight’), “Gravity’s holding me back” (‘As It Was’), “You sit high atop the kitchen counter” (‘Little Freak’), “No roof on the drive, dust off the high” (‘Cinema’), “Hot wax, jump off the roof” (‘Keep Driving’). From these lyrics, you get the impression that Styles wants to break free from the limits of a building, seeking something higher as he risks everything in pursuit of his truest self.
As much as he’d like us to believe it’s an album about self-discovery, the lyrics running through this record are undeniably fixated on a person. Taking inspiration from past relationships and the people in his own life, ‘Boyfriends’ and ‘Matilda’ are sweet tributes to the people he wanted to help when he didn’t have a place.
Filled with a carefree heaviness, ‘Satellite’ is one of the record’s lyrical standouts. Revealing a personal struggle to break away from the intense emotional gravity of a former relationship, the track intricately documents Harry’s feelings towards someone he’s not ready to lose: the person around which his entire metaphorical house orbits.
Emotionally unsettling in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on, the record leaves you with the less than hopeful feeling that hearts can be damaged, and sometimes, in order to heal, we just need to come home. Tainted by painful experiences that have left a mark on his heart, the happy-go-lucky Harry we see in radio interviews is only a tiny part of the real human that exists beneath.
Not living up to any expectation but his own, Harry has finally let go. Evident from a stage presence that transcends every inch of his superstar status, his own definition of success relies upon one thing: ‘I just want to make good music, that’s it’.
Listen to Harry’s House on Spotify here.
Featured image courtesy of Grant Thomas on Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
Lily Holbrook
Lily is passionate about combining her environmental values with her love of music, the natural world and culture.