Review: Harry Styles takes it to the bedroom on ‘Harry’s House’

It’s called “Harry’s House,” but the much-anticipated new album by the hottest male pop star on the planet — that would be, duh, Harry Styles — plays more like “Harry’s Boudoir.”

Indeed, the sexy intimacy on Styles’ third solo album makes you feel like you’re peeking through the bedroom door as the former One Direction heartthrob is putting it down with his current flame, actress Olivia Wilde.

Yup, putting it down.

Owning all of the hip-swerving swagger that made “Watermelon Sugar” a No. 1 hit in 2020 and won Styles his first Grammy, the singer is a ball of falsetto friskiness at the beginning of “Harry House.” 

“Green eyes, fried rice, I could cook an egg on you/Late night, game time, coffee on the stove/You’re sweet ice cream, but you could use a flake or two/Blue bubblegum twisted around your tongue,” coos Styles, grinding up agains a greasy bass line in his best falsetto at the beginning of the album opener “Music for a Sushi Restaurant.

Clearly, the trumpets aren’t the only things that are horny on this jazz-kissed come-on. And whatever’s on the menu, you’ll just be like, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

And Styles is having his way with you — and whoever you happen to be getting down with in any corner of your house  — on his sexiest album to date. 

The very next track, “Late Night Talking,” is made for late-night grooving — perhaps of the horizontal variety — as Styles floats atop a groove reminiscent of Dua Lipa’s “Levitating.” 

And if you thought there were jazz vibes on “Music for a Sushi Restaurant,” Styles even scats here. Yes, scats. And he pulls it off.

Although the title of the album is a reference to the Joni Mitchell song “Harry’s House/Centerpiece,” Steely Dan and, more recently, Jamiroquai (remember him?) are more like Styles’ muses on songs such as “Grapejuice,” a summer-ready romantic bop, and “Daydreaming,” a perfect soul-pop soufflé that adds a dash of the 5th Dimension into the mix.

Although the No. 1 single “As It Was” set the shimmying, shimmering stage for the album — with its ’80s pogo pop that has you breaking out your best Molly Ringwald moves — the second half of “Harry’s House” settles into dreamy, woozy balladry that will have you booing up — or getting on Tinder to find one.

When the album ends with “Love of My Life” — which couldn’t possibly be about anyone other than Wilde — Styles sounds positively smitten. Or better yet, love-stoned.