Harry Styles’ new album Harry’s House charms music critics
Image credit: BBC
Music experts have hailed Harry Styles’ highly anticipated new album, Harry’s House, for its “abundant charm,” “very well-crafted pop tunes,” and “moments of utter beauty.”
It’s the latest step in the former One Direction member’s “really extraordinary rebirth,” according to the New York Times.
Will Hodgkinson commented that it is “a lesson in becoming a credible artist without alienating the masses of once young admirers who made you a pop star in the first place,” but that the lyrics are its weakest point.
He wrote, “Where Styles does fall short in contrast to the rock and pop greats is in the words.”
Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called the lyrics “canny – albeit perhaps not particularly deep.”
Despite this, he declared in a four-star review that “every song seems like a single.”
Petridis called it “a sophisticated third album” that “majors in sounds evocative of the mid-80s,” comparing it to Prince and Steely Dan on certain tracks.
Styles has been dubbed “a Mick Jagger for our more enlightened age” by Rolling Stone.
According to the Evening Standard, Harry’s House has the “potential to cement Styles’ place at the top of the hit-making pile, set for summer dominance in all its funked-out swagger.”
“It’s almost a comfort to hear him settle into himself, to try sounds and ideas that go beyond a teen’s record collection in the 1970s,” iNews wrote, comparing new Styles tracks to Robbie Williams and Justin Timberlake.
“A casual listener might find their attention slipping away on all those soft, rounded edges,” Kate Solomon said in her three-star assessment.
Although it is “a brilliant and pleasant record,” she concluded that it has “very little bite” on a deeper level.
On Friday, Harry’s House, which is named after a song from Joni Mitchell’s 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns, will be released.
Meanwhile, Styles has signed up to read a CBeebies Bedtime Story as the latest celebrity to do so. He’ll read In Every House, On Every Street by Jess Hitchman, which is illustrated by Lili la Baleine.