A collection of songs that dominated charts in 2022, and an album that won album of the year: Harry’s House. This album was released on May 20, 2022 by Harry Styles. Thirteen songs are featured, and they each encapsulate the feelings surrounding a specific time or feeling in one’s life.

“Music For a Sushi Restaurant” kicks the album off with an upbeat, more techno-style rhythm. This funky—yet mildly spicy—track sets the rest of the album to be the perfect spring and summer jam. All throughout the songs, complex instrumentals are featured, so this piece gives listeners a hint as to what to expect.

The fourth track is “As It Was,” which was released in early April 2022 as a single; this was the first track dropped from the album. Quickly, this song started getting played on radio stations and quickly climbed charts before it took its spot as one of Harry Styles’s most popular songs on Spotify.

One of my personal favorites, “Matilda,” appears in the middle of Harry’s House, which changes the mood a bit. It has similar notions derived from Roald Dahl’s novel Matilda, as it elaborates on how family trauma can lead to new growth and opportunity—something that seemingly comes with age. As a high schooler, this feels resonant due to the fact that leaving my hometown and growing up is bittersweet yet simultaneously hopeful. Throughout all four minutes of this song, the lyrics mixed with the soft acoustic guitar feels like a gentle, all-consuming piece of comfort.

More upbeat songs, such as “Keep Driving” and “Satellite,” follow “Matilda” to lighten the mood again before the album ends with “Love of my Life.” Throughout 2022, these songs that feel like sweet escapes from reality were heavily featured on radio stations across the nation. This successful album undoubtedly kept him busy as he traveled around the globe performing these tracks and continuing to stun his audiences.