On 20th May 2022, Harry Styles so generously blessed us with his next wanna-be-a-classic album, 'Harry's House'. My initial reaction consisted of pounding my head against the wall in a sustained frenzy. This foetus of a popstar, whose most notable achievement to date is the ability to drive the country into an awestruck fluster just by yodelling about watermelons, set my expectations exceedingly low, as I anticipated nothing more than a few rhyming rants about strawberries. However, after listening to the first track on the album, I was delighted to find that my impulsive thoughts and assumptions turned out to be…absolutely true.
The first song 'Music for a Sushi Restaurant', or 'Music for a dreary dessert parlour in Middlesbrough' as it should rightfully be known, was intolerably repetitive. The endless outbreaks of nonsensical 'Ba-bas' and 'Scuba-dubas' certainly left me in a state of bewilderment, contemplating whether the singer was in fact British. I’ve refrained from referencing Styles as a musician, because as correctly stated by Damon Albarn, you actually have to write your own songs to constitute a musician. Therefore, Harry Styles is merely singing by numbers: a glorified karaokist. And the second song, 'Late Night Talking'? Well, the less said about it the better.
Even the semi-eponymous title 'Harry's House' serves to be another opportunity for self-absorption, and Styles’s desperate desire for quirkiness (also known as boy band complex). I think we can all agree that going from a vanilla, Jeremy-Clarkson-type to purple scarves and Wizard of Oz costumes is clearly a cry for help. I can only presume that his unhealthy craving for fame and attention has rooted from undiscussed childhood neglect, and he should spend these next few weeks, not with a producer, but with a therapist.
Styles's intention for his music is simply for it to resemble the background flutter of a birthday barbeque, which isn't lyrically acceptable at this late stage in his career. The classical breakthroughs of masterful eccentricism, such as Morrissey, Bowie, and Chrissie Hynde are intent upon delivering fresh, vivid and adventurous content that reverberates like poetry, and intimately addresses the listener. When you play this side-by-side with Styles's underwhelming album, you feel nothing but sorrow and disenchantment for the deterioration of idiosyncrasy that has occured over these past few years.
The entirety of the album was a collection of rudderless, bubblegum, adulterated anthems, supposedly eliciting a sense of domesticity. Styles seems to be illustrating a home and a life that does not exist, exhibiting his apparent lack of authenticity. ‘Gracejuice’, for example, a continuation of the singer’s fruit saga, attempted to embrace retro musical culture, but instead presented itself as another hollow song about fruit, corresponding with a long line of you-know-I-love-you-babe platitudes: Harry’s speciality.
On reflection, the nicest thing I can say about this album is that it exists.
