My first time listening to Harry Styles: "Harry's House" review
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- Опубліковано 21 тра 2022
- Pinocchio pop! Groomer x jailbait? Giving Harry a shot while also providing something of a societal breakdown of his audience and how he writes songs for them. Harry Styles - Topic @HarryStyles
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this man wearing his wife's scarf is prolly the best thing i've seen today
As a fifty something mom who has loved 1D from the beginning, I found it interesting that you missed his major fan base. His fans have aged with him and are twenty somethings. All I know is that Harry can sing anything and I would listen. His voice, personality and stage presence are timeless.
wildest skye thumbnail yet
I usually don’t click but this one MADE me
Harry is a fan of harry nillson. He's mentioned it in interviews. 😃
“erotically cool young uncle” is a great twitter handle.
Based thumbnail.
Good music is just good music, doesn't matter who made it or how old you are as a listener. You should check out his previous 2 albums. You're making a lot of assumptions and parroting old tropes about only having a teen/pre-teen audience. You wouldn't say this about the typical male rock bands. Regarding Harry's lyrics, with some of the crap out there now days it's nothing. Talk about rock bands and their lyrics degrading, using women like whores..please. Not to mention all the women artists talking about their WAPs etc. Harry records with real instruments not 'drum machines'. He's always toured and performed with a live band not backing tracks. And repeatedly calling him a groomer like he's a predator is gross and ignorant, you really don't know much about him. In 'Boyfriends' Harry is calling out men and how shitty they are. Like he said when he headlined Coachella and premiered that song, "To boyfriends everywhere, Fuck You" was his comment before he started. He's not trying to say oh 'he can be your boyfriend'. You might want to watch Harry's Zane Lowe interview (on UA-cam or Apple Music) where he talks about making this album and discusses some of the songs. He's not what you're portraying him to be, not even close. FYI, 'Love of My Life", Harry said that song is about England, where he's from.... I've seen Harry in concert (with my husband and my son) it's not just little pre-teen girls, there were plenty of men and women of all ages. I'm much older than you. Harry doesn't have a narrow demographic, he appeals to everyone. We've moved on from that old outdated way of thinking.
I think us fans have the benefit of knowing Harry a little thru interviews so we have that context. Because he came from a boy band, it’s really easy for people who have only listened to his music to make assumptions about his brand. It’s frustrating because it comes across as so cynical and Harry is so thoughtful about everything so we take it personally 😂
@@victoriar7799 yeah for real 💀
The whole 'grooming' thing is interesting, but I think I disagree as a person in their mid-twenties. A whole bunch of my friends both male, female and non-binary are into Harry Styles. He's offering a slight maturation of what One Direction offered, catering to the audience that grew up with him and offering something more sophisticated on the surface. The move to rock and 80's pop production is also a move to something more 'real' in the eyes of this audience that grew up with the really synthetic 1D instrumentation.
I think he really appeals to everyone, in the way monolithic pop music does.
Hard to disagree both with your lived experience and your excellent name.
@@professorskye Haha, thanks! I do think your perspective is a really interesting one, and I feel that One Direction (more as a brand entity than a collection of young artists) were guilty of exactly what you speak about.
Thanks for the video, fellow music reviewer Skye.
This. And I don’t even think it’s that he’s only offering that maturation for the fans of 1D, I think he’s doing it for himself. He wants to create “real” music but he’s trying to bring that audience along with him.
I think it’s interesting that his sexually explicit lyrics are getting so much attention because they seem incredibly tame compared to most of what I hear from most pop artists.
He’s using grapejuice for two reasons: it’s prettier to sing and he’s known for having songs about fruit - it’s a nod to that
I’m so annoyed by this review and yet I subscribed wtf 😂
Well, thanks for the sub! 😀 Also, thanks for your comments. My hope is that my position was strong, but not definitive. I’m always up for being contradicted! Especially when I make points that I know are controversial.
@@professorskye for sure! But do you understand why some of us are so confused by the attention those lyrics are getting? You wouldn’t have to look very far to find stuff on the same level or “worse” imo.
Also, I know you’re saying you don’t want to take a dig at music women like but sometimes your tone comes off exactly like that but disguised as mocking yourself because you’re enjoying the music too. I encourage you to explore that a bit because I think there’s some veiled misogyny still there. I’m not saying this casually or because you insulted an artist I like btw. I’m bringing it up because you seem thoughtful and I feel like you might be receptive to the feedback.
One other thing, I think if you’re a big fan of Harry, you watch interviews of him and those are never Harry Styles the brand - they’re pure Harry. When you get to know Harry a bit, I think you see his music with a little less cynicism about the brand, and you gain perspective about where he’s at artistically and where he hopes to go. That’s just me tho
P.S. the tracksuit yoga line does give me the ick. We’re on the same page with that one 🤣
No youtube upload notification makes me happier than your content, always fresh and thought provoking, might need to join the Patreon
To me, "As it Was" owes just as much to James Bay's "Pink Lemonade" as it does to "Take on Me" & The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights"...I became a fan of Harry Styles through his last album, "Fine Line", & I appreciate that he's experimenting with new genres (e.g. R&B, Funk, Electronic, Jazz, etc.). However, I think he still wears his musical influences a little too heavily, & they're often a bit too on-the-nose. It can sometimes feel like a midpoint between "influence" & pastiche.
This has always been my problem with him he only does things that have been proven to work over and over. I have seen nothing from him that wasn't derivative.
@@jacobcaudill6357 I agree. In some songs, you can actually hear that he's channeling Bowie for a line, The Beatles for another, Queen, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, George Michael, The BeeGees, etc., etc...
@@NatalieValentina6 can I ask why you’re still a fan? I mean that with genuine curiosity. If you feel like it’s almost pastiche, why do you still listen/keep coming back to his music? For the record, I don’t entirely disagree with you but I almost wonder what’s left for him to do that he likes and that’s “new” - is it necessarily bad for someone to take older sounds and smash them together so that a younger audience can appreciate them again? Are those of us who are fans and critical of his music sticking around because we believe he has something to new to show us and we’re just waiting for that day to come?
@@jacobcaudill6357 do you think Fine Line (the song) is derivative?
@@victoriar7799 Yes. Sounds like Joni Mitchell's with a little Grouplove twist. He is still using the beach boys vocal recording technique and a basic acoustic base for the song.
Loved the humor here, laughed out loud at some parts. Great stuff!!
Harry doesn't write songs for his audience. He writes them for himself. So if he wants to write music about what is going on in his life, then he should be allowed to do that as an artist. His fans aren't young kids. And if there are some young fans, then it's not Harry's responsibility to censor himself for those fans, it's their parents responsibility to keep their kids away from it if they want. He's explicitly said that throughout his time in One Direction and in the early days of his solo career he was embarrassed to write honestly because he was ashamed of his sexuality (and I mean that in the sense of him being a sexual being, not his sexual orientation)... he was scared of the thought of his audience knowing that he did engage in sexual acts like a normal human because he was so used to needing to be "kid friendly" for his younger audience AT THE TIME. So he's finally comfortable enough to talk about his life and everything it entails and I don't think he really cares anymore if people think it's "appropriate".. he's an adult and most of his fans are adults.. so why can't he write about this stuff?
He's still writing very kid friendly, his writing was more mature in Fine Line and in Harry's House he's most definitely appealing to those masses. It's a shame since I love that he's so personal and honest here, yet it feels very stripted back and limited. I agree that majority of his fanbase are 20-26 adults, so it makes sense why he is trying to appeal to teenagers and below to grow his following. I personally don't like how he went with it, though its not my saying as it's his decision at the end of the day. I do hope his next project is more explicit and he cares less of his fans and more so for himself.
@@diegocorral8787 i dont agree in the slightest. his writing in fine line in my opinion wasn’t more mature and I don’t find him appealing to the masses at all. On fine line the only “mature” content was Watermelon sugar. On Harry’s House he talks about alcohol on grape juice, drugs (like cocaine) are mentioned in a couple songs, Matilda deals with childhood trauma, Cinema daydreaming and keep driving have a lot of sexual undertones, and while it might not necessarily be “mature” in the way ur speaking, Boyfriends does a lot more self reflection even compared to Falling off of Fine Line which was full of self reflection. Yes, he might not be writing EXPLICIT music, but he probably doesn’t want to and that doesn’t mean he’s being kid friendly and trying to appeal to teenagers. Harry’s fanbase is big enough, I don’t think he’s worried at all at growing it with a younger audience. U might like the writing on Fine Line better because the lyrics are written differently, but it’s definitely not more mature. And I feel like this album was him caring THE LEAST about what his fans wanted. If he cared about what his fans wanted he would’ve made a rock album that is more like kiwi and medicine and stuff. That’s what he would’ve done if he was fan pleasing. But he did something completely different which shows me he made what he wanted to. I’ve been a fan of his for so long and I instantly recognized how much more mature (in multiple meanings of the word) these songs were. Like I said, u may not like how he went about discussing these topics but he definitely discusses more adult themes in this album than in Fine Line. I would venture to say that his debut had more mature themes in some of the lyrics than Fine Line did 🤷♀️ but that’s just me
Also I just wanted to add that I feel like Fine Line was a little more personal tho, which might be what ur seeing rather than “mature”. Fine line discussed a lot more things that were VERY personal to him like Cherry, Falling, To Be So Lonely, She, and Fine Line cuz he was discussing things about and within himself. Harry’s House feels much more observational, less personal. But he’s observing and discussing much more mature ideas than in Fine Line. But Fine Line definitely felt more emotional and personal as a whole
Just because a celebrity tells you their song is a metaphor for the cosmos of the universe doesn't mean it's true. Look at Coldplay for example. They wrote a bunch of nonsense on their last album and now no one takes them seriously anymore.
@@SomeSong2 i don’t understand what ur getting at? He doesn’t write songs with insane abstract metaphors about the cosmos…. ? His songs are either quite literal or they’re a metaphor for every day life things…. And he doesn’t really even discuss the meanings of his songs that often so he’s never eluded to some broad, pretentious concept for a song. So I guess in that regard ur right, that just because he said the song was a metaphor for the cosmos doesn’t mean it is… because he’s quite literally never done that.
@@Joelyne37 thank you for pointing out that there’s no way this was fan service. I was at ONO and he was soooo nervous playing his new music. You could tell he was genuinely worried we may not like it. AND I was in line at the pop up in NYC when the album went public and I can tell you more than one person around me was disappointed that the album didn’t sound like HS1. Releasing Medicine and an album with THAT sound would have been fan service. The sound of Harry’s House is totally left field - so much so that I was shocked and couldn’t really get into it until about the 4th listen. People can call it derivative but it was anything but fan service
banger fit professor!!
You should watch him perform live. There’s a lot of call and response with his songs and live, the crowd participation is amazing. Harry listens to Nilsson.
Honestly kinda rocking the scarf better than Harry rocks his outfits. I’m all for making clothes gender neutral, but something about his fits are just…. Ughhh. I don’t know. Just bad and clunky
yeah I get that, he kinda just breaks gender norms just for like shock value or something but he doesn’t seem to actually try to make it look good.
@@williamomalley6081 I’ve seen similar takes online to what you’re saying, but I have to imagine he does actually enjoy his outfits. I’m sure to a fair degree it is attention seeking, but I don’t feel comfortable writing it off as just shock. But for a guy with style in his name, he seems to be lacking quite a bit IMO 😆🤷♂️
i was wondering if you listened to the recent album by ethel cain, preacher's daughter. i know you liked her ep last year, so it would be a shame to miss this one just because there's a lot of great new music at the moment.
The song Cinema gives me the ick. I was listening to it through my headphones when I was at the shopping centre today, hoping against hope that no one could hear the lyrics through my headphones 😂
it's called guity pleasure, don't confuse it with the ick. Imo, musically it's one of the best songs on this album along with Daydreaming and Grapejuice
You do good work sir.
I want you to know that you are my second favourite critic. You are like the gateway drug into the best part about music criticism.
Who's your favorite critic? 😊
This thumbnail is wild bro 💀💀💀
Wow! What an amazing review! JK it's still not about Brian Wilson's Smile
The funny thing is that I have thought about doing a Smile review… but the Beach Boy’s version.
@@professorskye Beach Boys Smile Sessions was modeled after Brian Wilsons Smile which is actually a finished album.. i'll leave it all for you to unravel
the patreon part in the end is so The Life Of Pablo, with the paper full of names.
I liked the album but in the songs I hear so many influences it’s hard not to imagine them don’t by other artists better.
Daylight and Satellite sound like B-Sides from the 1975’s newest album.
Late night talking is similar to lizzo.
Music for a sushi restaurant sounds like a late prince song.
Boyfriends interpolates “I Am a Rock” by Simon and Garfunkel which is one of their best songs and that’s the closest he gets to referencing artists on the album IMO
are you gonna review the new ethel cain project, it is really really good imo
you're missing the fact that Cinema also sounds exactly like Daft Punk's "The Game of Love". The instrumentals are the same.
I'm a 53 year old woman and your review had me laughing out loud! Spot on! I have listened a few times and I love the album. In my teens, I grew up with a LOT of synth pop here in the UK and also some retro funk, so this album really appeals in a very throwback way.
The bits of your review that got me LOLing were the references to slightly icky lyrics ....I agree! They seem a bit contrived and I feel like smacking his hand and telling him to wash his mouth out with soap and water 😂😂😂.
I think Harry is stuck in an interesting position, we know he has a bit of an eye for the hot yoga mums in their late thirties ( hi Olivia ) and yes, maybe the contrived sexiness is an attempt to lure them in.
I think also the demographic of his fans in the UK might be a bit different. I asked my class of nine year olds if they had heard of HS and most of them didn't really know who he was 😂. He probably appeals more to One Directioners who grew up with him here, rather than very young kids.
My POV: Harry needs to either go total filth, or not mention sex at all. Otherwise it does come across kind of......sexy uncle 😂😂😂🤮😱.
Have you heard his cover of Wet Leg's 'Wet Dream?' He performed it live on Radio One's Live Lounge yesterday. I would really like to hear HS and his band go more into that direction......TONS of drums.
53?
pino palladino plays bass on this album, if it counts for anything
You are 100% wrong about his demographic. I am 62 and a male and went to the show last night in Chicago with my daughters in their 20s and that's his main audience. There were few tweens which surprised me. Mostly late teens and women in their twentys for sure. He has a great band and the show was amazing. I was a little worried that I wouldn't enjoy it and I was wrong
Very weird take my man. Don't agree in the slightest.
weird take
professor skye said 'cringe'. we're slowly breaking you old man
Please do the New Florence and the machine Dance Fever. Really Good!
Please listen to Fine Line..The more adult lyrics being thrown in now is definitely his attempt to mature with his 1D audience and move them completely away from boyband type music..i don't think he's very popular among the younger preteen or early teen demographic..Grapejuice im sure came about as a title because Harry has songs called Kiwi..Watermelon Sugar..Cherry..so it was his fruit continuation..I am 48 and my daughter is 27 we saw him on tour last November and I want to say his band is amazing and their live harmonies are really special..Take a listen to some of his live stuff..I think you will be more impressed..Id also like to point something out Harry's shows are so positive literally everyone was complimenting each other and he has created this really cool atmosphere where he is body/gender/sexuality positive..It was the most comfortable i have ever felt in a sold out crowd of people..I know that's a huge part of his appeal..it's really just a plus they are all very talented musicians.I will say im not really a fan of the kind of overused drug references and the odd sexual ones either..they feel really ingenuine..like placed for a specific purpose and i think that could've been done a little better..but i also get he's going for rockstar vibes really hard..all that said his solo music is pretty good..
This album is my best from Harry for real🤯👌🏾💯%. It's different and I'm happy he is breaking boundaries in music industry.
Not to be the person who just comments for more content, I really liked this review even if it didn't compel me to listen to the album, but Boldy James released a new album last week that sounds really dark and good. Probably not as good as Bo Jackson, but worth checking out!
I don’t mind comments of any kind! I do like that album, too. Not sure I have the time to review it, or how I would make the video interesting, but I’ll see.
@@professorskye Thank you, and have a nice day.
Good album that had lots of awful production ideas. Loved Matilda and the closer track though there was a couple songs I wanted to like for example Daylight that get butchered from the production. I'd really appreciate if there's an acapella version as I'd prefer that honestly.
omg, now I can totally imagine julian singing as it was, it does sound like a strokes song
lol ray harryhausen. "this ray harryhausen album is pretty dang good" it also would've been cool if ray did album art or something though I don't know if he worked anything like that, or if he designed his monsters. if he did, then yea album art would be cool
edit 2: I'm gonna assume he did
Glad someone picked up that little ad-lib
@@professorskye of course, love movie monsters
Hey ! Can you react to Ethel Cain new album Preacher’s daughter plz 😊
Hey, can you react to Rosalia, El mal querer album ? Please :)
review Death Grips - Botomless Pit !
Ummm this is the MOST weirdest take that I’ve ever heard, like wtf? It’s not up to Harry who listens to his music. It’s up to the parents to keep an eye on what their kids listen and watch etc. Also I’m not in either of those age groups and I’m a fan. Another thing he said is that this is his favourite album, the exact type he wanted to make in the Zane Lowe interview, he’s just doing what he wants.
I think when he was in One Direction he would have had to take some responsibility if he said or did anything explicit since his audience was so obviously young but now that he is his own solo artist who has been doing his own thing for years he should be taken seriously and have all the privileges of any other artist. I'm glad he has creative freedom over his music even if I only like a couple of his songs.
Exactly! How else is he gonna be honest in his music if he’s gonna censor himself every time, just because of the kids. Might as well make nursery rhymes🙄 Harry makes music that he would listen to, that he would enjoy and love. And that’s how it should be, shouldn’t it? I mean it’s his story that he’s writing and sharing to people after all. On one of his interviews before he said something about making a music that he loves and if people like them too, great, if not then that’s ok, at least he won’t regret making it, because he loves it.
@@jmickeyvh Exactly this take is so pathetic, it got me soo angry, like he’s just trying to grasp at straws. Also, I stopped watching the video after a certain point, so I don’t know if he talked about this topic later, but he did say that his 14 year old daughter wanted to listen to Doja cat, the artist who is literally featured on a song called “dick” and has many other songs about sex. This is no hate to her but I’m just saying she is a lot more explicit.
@@faatimahp Maybe you should finish listening to Skye's thoughts before calling it pathetic! He is just starting a discussion on the album and I found it to be very respectful and well thought-out.
@@jerkoool yeah plus hes prefaced lots of his other reviews with "I have done no research while preparing for this review" and at the end of the day he is a younger generation than at least me and what i assume to be people listening to harry styles. Just by that measure he's going to have a different perspective than all of us.
In my experience it's best to consume media with a grain of salt/open mind, that's the best way to maximize what you are learning/enjoying
This album is my least favorite Harry Styles album to this point. The highs like “Matilda” are very personal are amazing, while the lows, such as the “crescendo” moments on “Daylight” feel so compressed and messy that it completely takes me out of the experience. Overall, it is a fine album imo but nothing special (besides a couple moments)
Welcome to the loudness War
I really like Daylight and I’m surprised by the negative reactions to it. It’s one of the more unique sounding on the record
@@victoriar7799 imo, it sounds super formulaic and the lyrics variety is very trendy and uninspired. The crescendo moment in the song is mixed horribly. If you look at the mixers/engineers, they all primarily work on pop songs, not rock, and you can tell within the mix. Hearing it back to back with something like “Basketball Shoes” by Black Country, New Road really puts the level of expertise on the mix in perspective
But I’m not trying to take anyones enjoyment from the song, this is just the reasons why I find it the least enjoyable song on the album.
@@realcamiam thanks for explaining
You really should listen to and review his last album, Fine Line. I think you’d be impressed
Grapejuice is a metaphor for a break-up. As It Was definitely needs less stock drums and the vocal overdubbing can be grating. I agree it panders to his audience its a icky subject area when the ballads are very voyeuristic.
Don't really like the framing around 'audience'. Anecdotally, Harry Styles is 'cool' to me and early twenty-somethings, because it is 'cool' to like as much music as possible these days, rather than snobbish selectivity. Maybe in high school people still think like that, I remember hating on Justin Bieber. Harry Styles' 'queer' and pop tendencies (also vocal support of LGBT) also get a 'queer' audience across all ages, much in the same way that other great female pop artists have. I don't even think Harry Styles is trying to appeal specifically to the audiences you mention, if he is a 'Pinocchio pop star' isn't it more about him gaining some sort of individual artistry? He's 'grown up', you treat him like he's still One Direction. As others have said, there are grown up previous fans of one direction enjoying Harry Styles, early 20s.
I was all in when you started with the misogyny regarding art that is loved by women. Then you preceded to make an entire video about how Harry made a calculated album aimed to make children and middle aged women swoon? What? 😂 I like your lecture-style format a lot but a bit of research beforehand would help. Perhaps look into his live band. Or his personal writing style that is cryptic but truthful. For a major pop star he’s the most quirky, authentic, effortlessly cool guy around. Also he’s a grown man. Nowhere near jailbait.
Wierd, kinda gross, kinda creepy...Calculated? On your part, absolutely. Who did you expect to watch this?
I can appreciate your liking of this album, but I’m interested in how you didn’t mention the mixing and mastering. It’s awful! The guitar hits all over this project (ie Daylight and Satellite) sound like audio sludge and the poor volume balancing on Grape Juice and Cinema are irritatingly pronounced. The mix is so poor that it makes me pay more attention to his lyrics, which are definitely not his strong suit, and it ruins the album for me. I believe Harry is a very talented Vocalist, but a bad lyricist, I have to rely on the “vibe” of the track to enjoy it.
P.S
The guy who mixed this album also mixes Maroon 5’s works, so saying Harry sounds like “Maroon 6” isn’t too far off.
Lol. Crunge? That ist isn't quite what the cool kids say.
you breathe like tony soprano
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Bad Bunny review when?? Come on it’s the biggest album in the world!
Pop is straight up lyrics about sex and random drunkend hookups & relationships, along with the occasional mom-friendly sappy ballad marketed towards a predominantly preteen audience. It's something every parent is going to have to explain to their child when they're getting into music and singing along to "Put Your Body Up On Me" by the latest Dua Lipa or Harry Styles to come along in the realm of pop. That's been an industry cash cow for a long time. In the 2000s I remember turning off the TV during the lyric "I want ya screamin my name girl" by Backstreet Boys, and the camera panned to the singer rubbing his pants and then panned back to a crowd that barely knew their ABCs.
It’s honestly rly fucked up
Harry Styles the they/them icon