One year ago, Harry Styles released his third album, the intimate and warm Harry’s House. Responsible for consolidating the singer in the music industry, the album exceeded expectations with its resounding success, yielding hits, awards, and acclamation. To celebrate the record’s anniversary, let’s remember important moments that marked this era.
The door is open, come on in
The first signs of the new album began in March 2022, with the emergence of a website and advertisements in newspapers around the world titled as “you are home”. Immediately, fans began coming up with theories to find out if the clues were connected to a possible new work by Harry. Confirming the previous speculations, the social media accounts of the mysterious site were verified and had the follow of the artist!
Every day on the website, a door opened, revealing spoilers of the album, with enigmatic images and parts of lyrics, which only increased fans’ excitement.
The new era has come
On March 23rd, the door with daily surprises brought the long-awaited official announcement of Harry’s House. On that day, the name, cover and release date were revealed, and a teaser was released (it included “Love Of My Life’ on reverse).
After so many news about the project were revealed on the same day, fans were already eager to listen to the new songs and experience everything about the new era. But the news did not stop… After releasing more clues with posters around the world, on March 28, Harry announced his new single “As It Was”, also featuring a teaser with synth pop style in the music. A video with less than 10 seconds was enough to excite the audience, giving a preview of the success that it would be when released… Chaos was definitely set in fandom!
Cmon Harry, we wanna say goodnight to you!
On April 1st, Harry disclosed the song that would become the biggest hit of the year, and the success of its debut was just a preview of it. Harry set the record for the biggest day of a male artist’s song in Spotify’s history with 16.1 million streams and was second only to Adele in the overall ranking. In the US, the single broke the record for most streams in a single day.
The music video set the singer’s triumphant comeback. The song, with a dancing beat and lyrics exposing vulnerability, followed the same concept in the video, where Harry dances through a colorful world, but comes to undress in the idea of exposing his intimate self.
Now, “As It Was” accumulates several records and crucial milestones to the singer’s career. The song’s longevity on the Billboard Hot 100 is one of them, as it remained in the top 10 of the chart for 44 weeks, 15 of them at #1. It has also become the fastest song to reach two billion streams, one of the only songs to stay for one year in the top 10 of Spotify global. Indeed, a song for history!
Harrychella
Coachella is considered one of the biggest music festivals in the world, and has great performances by big artists in the music industry, so you can imagine the thrill of having Harry performing as a headliner in a very short solo career.
The British performed on April 15th and 22nd, even before debuting his new album, but not without giving a taste of the new era… The singer started his show with his latest hit “As It Was”, delivering the first live performance of the song!
As Styles never gets tired of surprising the audience, on the same night he sang two then unreleased songs from Harry’s House: “Late Night Talking” and “Boyfriends”. To close first presentation with gold, Harry Styles invited no one else but Shania Twain to sing duets of the songs “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” and “Still The One”.
In the second week of the festival, Harry, with an iconic uutfit, performed the songs of the album once again, and had his friend Lizzo as the guest of the night. Both made an incredible show singing a cover of “I Will Survive” (believe it or not, but they rehearsed this song only three times before the performance) and the One Direction’s classic “What Makes You Beautiful”.
Forget Harry’s House, we’re in Harry’s world now
The album’s debut was no different from the success of its first single. On the first day, it surpassed 97 million streams, ranking 5th on Spotify’s biggest album debut. It also ranked #5 in the biggest weekly premieres in Spotify’s history, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, broke the record for the highest selling of Vinyls of the modern era in the US in a week and sold 500k copies of the album in only one week.
There are so many records and landmarks that cannot be numbered that the house was definitely a mansion. However, one could say that one of the great victories is the evolution of Styles’ relationship with his work. During his solo career, Harry went through the process of finding himself in music, of feeling free to explore different styles. In a classic interview with Zane Lowe, the musician talked about his relationship with the work done at Harry’s House and how it demonstrates evolution in relation to his previous works:
This is my favourite album. I love it so much. It was also made so much more intimately […] everything was played for a very small amount of people in a room, so to me it’s everything that I’ve wanted to make in a lot of ways
Harry Styes, about ‘Harry’s House’
And the grammy goes to…
Prizes abounded for Harry’s House. The album was recognized for its excellence in several categories in awards worldwide, including in big categories and entered numerous lists where it was considered one of the best albums of 2022.
Proving once again that it dominated the year, Harry’s House was declared Album Of The Year six times! Among the awards we have GAFFAs, VMAs, JUNO Awards, Los40 Music Awards, in addition to the remarkable and feared: BRITs and Grammys.
BRIT Awards, one of the biggest awards in the UK, Harry’s home country, awarded the singer in all categories in which he was nominated: AOTY, music of the year for ‘As It Was’, artist of the year, and best pop/R&B artist.
Talking about awards in this era is also remembering one of the most exciting days for the career of Harry Styles: Harry’s House winning the main category of the Grammy Awards, and with a touching announcement made by a fan of the singer. His reaction was everything!
In addition to the main award, Harry’s House took home the categories Best Engineering of Non-Classical Album and Best Pop Vocal Album, making him one of the biggest names in the edition.
Love On tour
The Love On Tour is Harry Styles’ second world tour and is aimed at the artist’s connection with fans, who together created a unique atmosphere for the shows, from the visual identity to the energy that both emanate from the shows. The tour started in 2021, with the repertoire focused on the Fine Line.
After the release of the new album, Harry made two shows for promotion, singing for the first time all the new songs of the album. The shows took place in New York (on the exact day of the album’s release) and London, Harry performed with a thematic structure, and with the show being broadcast by Apple Music.
The tour already collects Harry’s best moments and interactions with fans, from baby sex revelations to wedding proposals in the audience. One of the hightlight points of LOT is the very high demand even though its only his the second tour, to the point of already filling stadiums. Harry performed at a sold out Wembley Stadium, 15 sold out shows at Madison Square Garden and KIA Forum, and constantly opens extra dates to supply the entire audience.
Singles
In addition to “As It Was”, another three songs from the album became singles: “Late Night Talking”, “Music For a Sushi Restaurant” and recently, to the happiness of fandom, Harry dropped the video clip of “Satellite”, one of the favorite songs among fans. Stomper, we love you.
This era consolidated Harry Styles in the music industry, and it’s great to think of the world of possibilities he can explore in his future albums. For fans, we can only appreciate the current albums and dream of a next comeback while we enjoy the essence of comfort at Harry’s House!
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The article above was translated with the help of Isabelle Fucidji Bignardi and later edited by Julia Queiroz.
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