The front door to Harry’s House has finally been unlocked, bringing with it 12 brand new Harry Styles songs in addition to his previously released Billboard Hot 100-topping single “As It Was.” Dropping at midnight Friday (May 20), the 28-year-old singer-songwriter’s highly anticipated third solo album turned out to be a combination of experimental and classic sounds boasting lyrics about love, lust and empathy — a culmination of three years of work and self reflection that Styles is opening up about.
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When his album dropped, he posted candid photos on Instagram of himself — oftentimes looking quite exhausted — behind the scenes of his Harry’s House studio sessions. In the snaps, he can be seen playing piano, recording vocals at a microphone, jotting down notes wearing a yellow crochet hat and, at one point, getting fluids from an IV alongside two of his collaborators. The Grammy winner also sat down virtually with Sirius XM Hits 1 to talk about where he stands on the final product.
“My intention when finishing an album is I want to feel personally really interested in what the next album sounds like,” he revealed to host Mikey Piff about the direction his sound is taking. “I don’t ever want you to finish an album and feel like, ‘Oh, OK, I know exactly what he’s gonna make next time.’ I want to feel like I have no idea what the next album sounds like, and right now, I have no idea what the next album sounds like. That’s a really exciting place to be in.”
He also opened up about writing what are arguably the most emotional songs on Harry’s House — “Matilda” and “Boyfriends.” “Making an album is incredibly navel gazing. It’s a very self-absorbed experience,” he confessed. “But I think at times there are things that have affected me that I’ve felt are more important to write about, and I think songs like ‘Matilda’ and ‘Boyfriends’ and stuff like that is, you know, it’s just being true to what I’m experiencing at the time and not focusing on, ‘Oh, I should write a song that’s about this, or I should write a song that’s about this.’
“When at the start of this album, when I imagined what kind of album I wanted to make, this sounds like everything I wanted to make,” he added. “And it sounds much like how I imagined it.”
He also took a moment to thank his fans for supporting him with such an open mind, saying, “I don’t think I could have made this album if I wasn’t in a place that made me feel like I was allowed to.”
“And I think that is very much down to both my friends and the environment that I feel like the fans have created for me to be able to go out and make what I wanna make,” he continued. “So I guess just, just to thank you really, I think I wouldn’t have been able to make it if I didn’t feel this good about making music the way I wanted to do it.”
See Harry Styles’ behind-the-scenes photos of making Harry’s House, and watch his interview on Sirius XM, below: