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Celis
Alexis Celis

Dr. Sharity Nelson

English 1301-122

4 October 2022

Harry’s House Cover album analysis

Harry’s House was released on May 20, 2022 and is the third solo album that Harry has

made. The album appeals to fans who are invested in Harry Styles, people who enjoy pop music,

and people who are interested in more introspective music. The cover is interesting because it

includes Harry Styles standing upright in an upside-down living room (Fig. 1). This album cover

uses visual elements such as a pondering look, background colors, and an upside-down room to

appeal to its audience by allowing the people to see his mindset and the emptiness he feels and

relate to it.

The pondering look Harry is expressing allows the audience to gain a piece of his thought

process from making this album. His expression of the pondering look he gives represents what

he is thinking and about what type of music and lyrics he wants to propose to the audience.

When this album was in the making it was during the COVID-19 pandemic. This also resulted in

the way Harry is thinking because there was a change not only for him but for many others in the

world. To be able to incorporate the situations he went through into the music allows his thought

process to develop more and be able to set the tone and relatability for his album. Harry’s

pondering stance is also to show how deeply he is thinking about this album and what from his

life he can input into his music. By doing this it allows his audience to gain that introspective of

his music to be able to relate to similar situations.

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The colors that are portrayed in the background are a neutral and beige aesthetic with

small pops of colors; blue, pink, yellow, and green. Looking at the cover the room feels bare as

compared to someone else’s living room that would have personal items in the room. The

bareness shows that he is usually not home due to his career. He misses out on a lot of personal

things in his life that he isn't able to enjoy. For example, in an interview with Zane Lowe, Harry

tells Zane that, “And eventually it's just assumed you're unable to be at stuff. Finally, I was like,

‘I want to balance my life out a bit. Working isn’t who I am, it's something I do. I want to be able

to put that down.” (Styles, Harry). Although he does miss out on personal things in his life the

contrast between the pops of colors and warmth from the sun shining into the window gives a

welcoming feeling (Fig 1.). His outfit choice of baggy blue plants and with a flowy white top

also give the impression of being comfortable. As we can see in the cover, the colors give off a

neutral feeling of emptiness but invites the audience into an intimate space (Fig 1.).

At first glance, when looking at this cover people's eyes automatically dart to Harry

Styles standing upright in an upside-down living room. In this room, there are usual living room

items, such as a couch, chair, picture frame, lamp, side tables, window, and door frame. This

may seem like a lot of items however the room still seems to be empty. He is portraying the

feeling through the album cover so that people who appeal to his type of music feel and relate to

the emptiness he feels. The living room shows that he wants this album to be intimate. For

people to feel welcomed by using a concept of his home, the living room, to be able to get a feel

for what goes in his mindset. “My whole world was turned upside down”, is a saying that a lot of

people use to show that their lives changed completely, whether in a positive or negative way.

 Overall, this album cover may look just like any other album cover. People often fail to

observe the true meaning behind an album cover. Most of the times many of musicians’ album
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covers give insight into what the type of music is going to be like. What makes it so special is

that Harry’s House was his third solo album which was made around COVID-19. This makes the

album have much more meaning because he was able to really go deep into his state of mind to

be able to create such intimate music. Typically, in album covers there tends to be a meaning to

the photograph that the artists use to represent their album. Harry chose this image to portray his

state of mind on how he feels whenever he goes home and what is going on in a day of his

life. Once this album was released it immediately was one of the most played albums and made it

to No.1 on the Billboard. “(the largest sales week of 2022)”,(Caulfield, Keith). The pondering

look, background colors, and upside-down living room reveals what the thought process of his

mindset was for making the songs in the album and how influential it was to him. 
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Appendix
Photographed by: Hannah Moon

Moon, Hannah. Cover album photo for Harry Styles’s Harry’s House. 20 May 2022. Apple
Music, https://music.apple.com/us/album/harrys-house/1615584999. Accessed 29 September
2022.

Figure 1. Cover album photo from Harry’s House (2022).

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Works Cited

Styles, Harry. Cover album Harry’s House. 20 May 2022. Apple Music.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/harrys-house/1615584999. Accessed 29 September 2022.

Styles, Harry. “Harry Styles – Zane Lowe & Apple Music ‘Harry’s House’ Interview.”

Youtube, 16 May 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L4m5ZMzf3A. Accessed 1 October 2022.

Caulfield, Keith. “Harry Styles’ ‘Harry’s House’ Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard 200.” Billboard,

Billboard, 29 May 2022, www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/harry-styles-harrys-house-

number-one-billboard-200-chart-1235078807/. Accessed 4 October, 2022.