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Alexis Celis

Dr. Sharity Nelson

English 1301-122

13 October 2022

Harry’s House Album Cover Analysis

Harry’s House, the third solo album made by singer Harry Styles, was released on May

20, 2022. The album appeals to people who enjoy pop music, introspective music, and most

importantly, to fans who are invested in Styles’ himself. The album cover is interesting because

it illustrates Styles’ standing upright in an upside-down living room (Fig. 1). This album cover

uses visual elements such as his expression and stance, an upside-down living room, and

background colors to appeal to its audience by allowing the people to relate to Styles’ mindset

and the emptiness he is feeling.

The expression and stance that Styles’ is shown doing in the image below allows the

audience to gain a piece of his thought process from making this album. His expression

represents the profound way he is thinking and what type of music and lyrics he wants to

propose to the audience. To be able to incorporate the situations he went through during his life

and turn them into music allows his thought process to develop more. This sets the tone and

relatability in the album and gives him growth for creativity. Next, we can see Styles’ position

being shown off to one side of the living room. This portrays that we are looking into his mind.

The audience looks through his mind by seeing that his body is positioned towards the back

corner of the ceiling, and he seems out of proportion next to the objects. Almost as if Styles is

visualizing himself in the living room. Also, the audience may notice that the outfit choice of

baggy blue pants matched with a flowy white top and white socks shows that he is comfortable.
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By wearing this outfit, Styles’ gives the impression of being comfortable with the audience

looking into a piece of his mind. This shows how deeply he is thinking about this album and

what he can input into his music from his life. By doing this, it allows his audience to gain that

introspective of his music to be able to relate to similar situations.

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

standing upright in an upside-down living room (Fig 1.). In this room, there are everyday living

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

This may seem like a lot of things; however, the room still seems to be empty. He is portraying

the overall emotion through the album cover so that people who appeal to his type of music feel

and relate to the emptiness that he feels. “My whole world was turned upside down” is a

common saying that a lot of people use to show that one’s life has changed completely, either in

a positive or negative way. In the Apple Music summary, there is a section where they mention

he wrote the songs during COVID 2020. This could be one of the main factors for this album.

The living room expresses that he wants this album to be intimate. Choosing to make the living

room upside-down shows that this space is an internal thing for Styles’. By using the concept of

his home, the living room, it allows the audience to feel welcomed yet gain a perspective of the

emptiness that tends to go on in his mindset when he thinks of home.

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 room shown on the album

cover, it tends to feel bare compared to someone else’s living room which would have personal

items, like family pictures, 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, such as relatives’ birthdays, in his life that

he isn't able to enjoy. The colors, mainly being neutral colors, have an influence on the particular
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types of atmospheres. In this case, the album cover gives a quiet atmosphere because of the

limited objects in the room. This shows that the background is what he envisions Harry’s House

to be. Although he does miss out on personal things in his life and feels empty, the contrast

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

feeling (Fig 1.). In the cover, the colors give off a neutral sense of bareness while also inviting

the audience into an intimate space in his mind (Fig 1.).

Overall, this cover may look just like any other album cover, but the visual elements

work together to make this cover unique. People often fail to observe the true meaning behind an

album cover. Most of the time, many musicians’ album covers give insight into what their

album's music will be like. This makes the album have much more meaning because he was able

to go deep into his state of mind to be able to create such intimate music. 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. The position and stance, upside-down living room, and background colors work

together to reveal the true meaning and show the thought process of his mindset for making the

songs in the album.

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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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Work 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.