After almost a year of near-silence, singer Harry Styles has made the past six months a whirlwind for fans. With the U.S. leg of Love on Tour, the creation of his cosmetic brand Pleasing and his feature in Marvel’s “Eternals,” fans had little time to catch their breath.
Now, Styles has released his new single “As It Was”: the first of many songs from his anticipated third studio album, “Harry’s House.” However, in typical Styles fashion, the journey towards the “As It Was” release required the utmost attention from his supporters.
Ever since Harry Styles Headquarters announced Styles’s position as a headliner for Coachella, an annual music festival in California, his listeners were on the lookout for clues to new music. Styles dropped his award-winning album “Fine Line” in December of 2019 and failed to put out music since, so fans assumed fresh music would accompany his star performance at the acclaimed festival.
Sophomore Olivia Lensch was one of many fans curious about Styles’s upcoming music plans, “When I saw he was playing Coachella, I knew it was time. I knew he was sitting on something,” she said.
In early March, mysterious newspaper ads featuring an upside-down vase of tulips and the phrase “You Are Home” began appearing in papers everywhere from Australia to Argentina. The illustration displayed the URL youarehome.co, which led to a site showing a closed door that cracks open to reveal a sliver of an image.
The first image exhibited on the website appeared on March 19, and the photo has changed each day following. The initial photo’s origin was uncovered by fans to be a portion of the cover of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature and Selected Essays”.
Other photos ranged from the earth, to grapes to the cover of Haruki Murakami’s “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”. The images’ significance sparked fan theories, including them representing letters to spell out a phrase relevant to new music, having relation to lyrics or simply being objects that Styles enjoys.
In coordination with the daily snapshots, a Twitter account was created under the same @youarehome title. The account routinely posts snippets of supposed lyrics, such as, “what happens in between colours?” and, “find a moment of calm, colour it in.” The account’s fourth post showcased the words, “in this world, it’s just us, you know it’s not the same as it was,” which listeners now know is an obvious lyric from Styles’ single “As It Was”.
Fans connected the cryptic newspaper sightings and social media accounts to Styles because of his history with innovative forms of announcements. To promote his single from “Fine Line,” Styles plastered buildings around the world with lyrics from the song: “Do you know who you are?” Similarly, Styles created the fictional town Eroda, adore spelt backwards, and anonymously marketed restaurants, hotels and businesses in the town to advertise for his hit song “Adore You.”
Styles has decidedly taken the creative launch even further for “Harry’s House.” The next hint he provided for his audience was coordinates encrypted in the background of the routine youarehome.co post. Most locations discovered with the coordinates flaunt a large poster with an image of Styles and the lyrics, “It’s not the same as it was.”
However, the discreet hints towards Styles’s third album are not limited to ones discovered this March. Once fans identified the relation between Styles and “home,” more ingenious clues became apparent. For example, the pit sections for Styles’ previously announced U.K. tour are labeled parts of the home like a hallway, kitchen and bedroom. Also, Styles ended multiple Love On Tour shows by saying, “One more time, as loud as you can, send me home.”
Styles’s fans worked – and continue to work – relentlessly to understand his scavenger hunt method of revealing his entertainment plans. Luckily, when fans put their all into uncovering the clues surrounding the music, the songs become even more personal.
Sophomore Natalie Weyrick confirmed the perspective of Styles’s fans on the journey to the single, “I think it makes a fun challenge and it’s more interactive with the fans.” Styles gave supporters the opportunity to participate in an experience limited to devoted fans, and created a community that feels interconnected with Styles’ mind.
Music releasing processes similar to Styles’ are commonly used by other members of the entertainment industry, namely singers Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. During the promotion of her song “Chained To The Rhythm,” Perry covertly placed disco balls, similar to Styles’s placement of posters, with attached headphones to let fans prematurely listen to the song.
Swift, an expert in teasing new music, also used social media to hint at her seventh studio album, “Lover.” In hindsight, her posts from this era were all clues toward new music. She posted an image of seven palm trees to represent completing her seventh album, used heart filters to signify the title of the album and baited song titles throughout her captions.
Swift’s album and Perry’s song experienced equal commercial success, and it is likely that their efforts to make their releases an adventure played a role in that. Similar success and fan attachment are in the cards for “Harry’s House” because of the creative introduction to the music.
The anticipation for new music from Styles was well worth it, and Weyrick perfectly summarized why, “The song is bomb. I think it’s the next summer anthem,” she said.
