''Harry's House'' is the third studio album by English singer and songwriter

Harry Styles Harry Edward Styles (born 1 February 1994) is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. His musical career began in 2010 as a solo contestant on the British music competition series ''The X Factor (UK TV series), The X Factor''. Following hi ...

, released on 20 May 2022 by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

and Erskine. The album was largely written and recorded during 2020 and 2021 and has been noted as Styles' most introspective work. Musically, it is inspired by city pop and features pop-funk,

pop rock Pop rock (also typeset as pop/rock) is a fusion genre with an emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than rock music. Originating in the late 1950s as an alternative to normal rock and roll, earl ...

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...

and R&B styles. Despite reportedly being

leaked A leak is a way (usually an opening) for fluid to escape a container or fluid-containing system, such as a tank or a ship's hull, through which the contents of the container can escape or outside matter can enter the container. Leaks are usuall ...

a month before its release, ''Harry's House'' debuted with the best first-week sales in Styles' career. It debuted at number one on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

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, making it the largest opening week of 2022 in the United States. 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. It was supported by the singles " As It Was", "

Late Night Talking "Late Night Talking" is a song by English singer Harry Styles. The song was released to US pop radio as the second single from his third studio album ''Harry's House'' on 21 June 2022. A music video for the song was later released on 13 July 20 ...

", and "

Music for a Sushi Restaurant "Music for a Sushi Restaurant" is a song by English singer Harry Styles, from his third studio album ''Harry's House'' (2022). It was released to hot adult contemporary radio on 3 October 2022, as the album's third single. The song was written by ...

"; 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 nominated for the 2022 Mercury Music Prize.

Background and production

In an interview with

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, 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 An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.

recorded at his own house. The album is considered Styles's most introspective of his career thus fair; 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… ndit 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." The album was largely written and recorded during 2020 and 2021. "Boyfriends", however, was initially written during the final week of '' Fine Line'' (2019) recording. The first song to be written for the album was "Late Night Talking", which was written the day Styles, the band and the producers arrived at Shangri-La studios in Malibu. "Matilda" is titled after the lead character from a book of the same name, written by

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter ace of Norwegian descent. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. Dahl has be ...

. The song was inspired by a relationship Styles had with someone who was going through difficulty. In an interview with

Zane Lowe Alexander Zane Reid Lowe (born 7 August 1973) is a New Zealand radio DJ, live DJ, record producer, and television presenter. After an early career in music creation, production and DJing, he moved to the UK in 1997. He came to prominence thro ...

, Style's 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'". The album features

John Mayer John Clayton Mayer ( ; born October 16, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Born and raised in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Mayer attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, but left and moved to Atlanta in 1997 with ...

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

on "Cinema" and "Daydreaming". "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. "Cinema" was Styles's "fun" track which he started writing while being on the

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and continued writing piecewise. "Love of My Life" is Styles's way of showing his love and appreciation to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and home.

Composition

Musically, ''Harrys House'' takes influence from Japan's city pop genre and also features pop-funk,

and R&B. Jon Dolan of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' described the album's musical sound as "bright", especially the productions use of synths and horns over synth-pop and R&B songs.

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

synthesiser A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...

s 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 Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...

, whose 1975 album '' The Hissing of Summer Lawns'' featured a track called "Harry's House /

Centerpiece A centrepiece or centerpiece is an important item of a display, usually of a table setting. Centrepieces help set the theme of the decorations and bring extra decorations to the room. A centrepiece also refers to any central or important object ...

", tweeted that she "love the title". Upon announcing the album, Styles set up an interactive website and a new

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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 "

". One month before the album's release, ''Harry's House'' was reportedly

on Twitter in its entirety.

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

, owner of Columbia Records, publicly condemned the leak in a tweet. On 26 May 2022, in a segment on ''

The Late Late Show with James Corden ''The Late Late Show with James Corden'' (also known as ''Late Late'') is an American late-night talk show on CBS. It is the fourth and current iteration of '' The Late Late Show''. Airing in the U.S. from Monday to Friday nights at 12:37:28am ...

'', Styles and

James Corden James Kimberley Corden (born 22 August 1978) is an English television host, actor, comedian, and singer. In the United Kingdom, he is best known for co-writing and starring in the critically acclaimed BBC sitcom ''Gavin & Stacey''. In the Un ...

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 Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' (G ...

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 Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

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.

Critical reception

''Harry's House'' was met with critical acclaim. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 83 based on 26 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim"—Styles' highest rated album.

Alexis Petridis Alexis Petridis ( el, Αλέξης Πετρίδης; born 13 September 1971) is a British journalist, head rock and pop critic for the UK newspaper ''The Guardian'', as well as a regular contributor to the magazine '' GQ''. In addition to his mus ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' 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 A pop icon is a celebrity, character, or object whose exposure in popular culture is regarded as constituting a defining characteristic of a given society or era. The usage of the term is largely subjective since there are no definitively object ...

who made it". Reviewing the album for '' DIY'', Emma Swann felt that while Styles alternately spends time "exploring vivid lyrical micro-

vignettes Vignette may refer to: * Vignette (entertainment), a sketch in a sketch comedy * Vignette (graphic design), decorative designs in books (originally in the form of leaves and vines) to separate sections or chapters * Vignette (literature), short, i ...

" 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 AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

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 "Watermelon Sugar" is a song by English singer Harry Styles from his second studio album '' Fine Line'' (2019), included as the album's second track. Styles wrote the song with Mitch Rowland and the song's producers, Tyler Johnson and Kid Ha ...

' to be found, this album, as a whole, has solid bones and is sturdy enough to last."

Commercial performance

Two hours after the album was released on

, ''Harry's House'' earned the most first-day streams for a pop album released in 2022. In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number one on the UK Albums chart with 113,000 album-equivalent units, becoming Styles' second number-one album and the fastest-selling album of 2022 so far. In the United States, ''Harry's House'' debuted at number one on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart with 521,500 units, consisting of 330,000 pure sales and 189,000 streaming units (from the 246.96 million on-demand streams of the album's tracks). It became Styles' third US number-one album, his biggest debut in the country, and the second-largest opening week for an album in 2022, behind

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...

's ''

Midnights ''Midnights'' is the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on October 21, 2022, via Republic Records. Announced at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, the album marks Swift's first body of new work since her 2020 ...

''. Additionally, it set a modern-era record for single-week vinyl album sales in the US, selling 182,000 copies, and marked the second-largest week for an album on vinyl since

Luminate Luminate may refer to: * Luminate (band), an American contemporary Christian music band * Luminate (company), a music sales data provider * Luminate Education Group Luminate Education Group (formerly Leeds City College Group) brings together a n ...

began tracking music sales in 1991. ''Harry's House'' notched a second consecutive week at number one, with 160,500 units sold, becoming his second album to spend multiple weeks atop the charts after 2019's ''Fine Line'' and the first album to spend its first two weeks at number one since Adele's ''30'' spent its first six weeks at number one from late 2021 through early 2022. With the entire tracklist charting within the top 15 of the

ARIA Charts The ARIA Charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling songs and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA became the offici ...

, the album set a new record in Australia. Besides the chart-topper "As It Was", three other songs reached the top 10 of the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100: "Late Night Talking" (at number four), "Music for a Sushi Restaurant" (at number eight) and "Matilda" (at number nine). With four concurrent top-ten hits on the chart, this made Styles the first British solo artist to achieve this, and among all British acts he joins

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

, who achieved the feat in 1964.

Awards and nominations

Track listing

Notes

Personnel

Musicians

– lead vocals (all tracks), whistles (3),

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

(4, 10), keyboards (11) * Alayna Rodgers – background vocals (1, 2, 8, 9) * India Boodram – background vocals (1, 2, 8, 9) * Mitch Rowland – bass guitar, percussion (1); drums (4, 10), electric guitar (10) * Kid Harpoon – drum machine (1, 2, 4–6, 10, 13), electric guitar (1–6, 8–11, 13), synthesizer (1, 2, 4–6, 8–11, 13), bass guitar (2–11, 13); programming, tambourine (2); drums (3, 4, 8, 9, 11), keyboards (3, 8, 10), piano (3, 7), acoustic guitar (6, 7, 13), percussion (8) * Tyler Johnson – drum machine (1, 3–6, 8, 10, 13), electric guitar (1, 5, 6), synthesizer (1, 4–11, 13), background vocals (2, 5, 9), programming (2, 3, 13), horn (3), keyboards (3, 9–11), piano (4, 9, 13), bass guitar (8, 10, 11), organ (9, 11) * Ivan Jackson – trumpet (1) * Rob Harris – bass guitar, electric guitar (3) * Hal Ritson – programming (3) * Jeremy Hatcher – programming (3–5, 8, 11, 13), electric guitar (11) * Richard Adlam – programming (3) * Doug Showalter – electric guitar, percussion (4) * Pino Palladino – bass guitar (6, 9) * Dev Hynes – cello (7) * Joshua Johnson – saxophone (7) *

– electric guitar (8, 9) * Sammy Witte – programming, synthesizer (8) * Cole Kamen-Green – horn (9) * Ivan Jackson – horn (9) * Sarah Jones – percussion (10) * Ben Harper – acoustic guitar, electric guitar,

slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos tha ...

(12)

Technical

* Kid Harpoon – Production (all tracks) * Tyler Johnson – Production (all tracks) * Samuel Witte – Production (8), engineering (6, 8) *

Randy Merrill Randy Merrill is an American mastering engineer who has worked with international artists including DAY6, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, Harry Styles, One Direction, Adele, Imagine Dragons, Beck, Liam Gallagher, Jonas Brothers, Muse, Cage the ...

– mastering *

Spike Stent Mark "Spike" Stent (born 3 August 1965) is an English record producer and mixing engineer who has worked with many international artists including Madonna, Marshmello, U2, Beyoncé, Björk, Depeche Mode, Echo & The Bunnymen, Grimes, Ed Sh ...

– mixing * Jeremy Hatcher –

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

* Oli Jacobs – engineering (1, 6, 10) * Hal Ritson – engineering (3) * Richard Adlam – engineering (3) * Nick Lobel – engineering (11), vocal engineering (10) * Joe Dougherty – engineering assistance * Josh Caulder – engineering assistance * Matt Wolach – engineering assistance * Adele Phillips – engineering assistance (1–11, 13) * Luke Gibbs – engineering assistance (1–11, 13) * Katie May – engineering assistance (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13) * Oli Middleton – engineering assistance (1, 6, 10) * Garry Purohit – engineering assistance (2, 3, 5–7, 9) * Matt Tuggle – engineering assistance (6) * Brian Rajartnam – engineering assistance (8)

Art

* Molly Hawkins – creative director * Hanna Moon – photography * Harry Lambert – styling * Patience Harding – set decoration * Bradley Pinkerton – graphic design

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

Release history

Footnotes

References

{{Authority control 2022 albums Harry Styles albums Albums produced by Kid Harpoon Albums produced by Tyler Johnson (musician) Columbia Records albums Albums recorded at Shangri-La (recording studio)