{"id":334472,"date":"2026-03-07T22:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T22:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/334472\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T22:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T22:33:12","slug":"why-coming-up-roses-is-harry-styles-emotional-powerhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/334472\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘Coming Up Roses’ Is Harry Styles\u2019 Emotional Powerhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHarry Styles<\/a> spends most of his delightful new album on the dance floor. Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.<\/a> is the first new music in four years, since he conquered the pop game with Harry\u2019s House and then left it behind. But the most powerful moment is the quietest. \u201cComing Up Roses\u201d is the emotional centerpiece of the album, one of the only ballads, the only tune he wrote totally solo. It\u2019s the closest he comes to a straightforward pop love song. But it\u2019s the kind of romantic invitation that begins with \u201cTell me your fears.\u201d It\u2019s really about doubt and vulnerability, which is why it really sums up where Harry\u2019s at right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new album is basically a twin to his solo debut<\/a>, from 2017 \u2014 both \u201cstarting over\u201d albums, both avoiding any obvious hits or grandstand moves. He sings bluntly about escaping the trap of celebrity in songs like \u201cPaint by Numbers.\u201d The whole Kissco album feels emotionally naked, even in the electro-sleaze bangers \u2014 as he chides himself in another highlight, \u201cThe Waiting Game,\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve been a little over-honest lately.\u201d But \u201cComing Up Roses\u201d is the mission statement \u2014 it\u2019s the \u201cMatilda\u201d or \u201cCherry\u201d of this album, the one that raises the stakes for all of the other songs.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe sings an extravagantly intimate ballad in the mode of Fine Line, just piano and an orchestra, with acclaimed conductor Jules Buckley. It\u2019s two scared people finding a moment together, admitting their insecurities. \u201cJust for tonight, let\u2019s go hangover chasing,\u201d he sings over the yearning pizzicato strings. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll talk your ear off about why it\u2019s safe\/As I fumble my words and fall flat on my face through the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThese lovers don\u2019t find any answers here \u2014 just a moment where they feel slightly less alone. \u201cWe\u2019ll see out the night with your head on my chest, me and you,\u201d he sings. But they worry about whether they\u2019re telling each other too much, or not enough, or the wrong thing. \u201cDoes all of this seem to be bringing us closer?\u201d he asks. \u201cOr am I back-seating your life? Judging while you drive?\u201d Two hearts let their guards down, fighting the urge to direct the scene like it\u2019s a film, struggling to communicate, even if that just means resting in silence together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tThe song ends with the album\u2019s most painfully poignant moment \u2014 after the orchestral interlude, Harry comes back and sighs, \u201cThere\u2019s only me and you,\u201d then sings wordlessly along with the strings. Even though he\u2019s not singing any lyrics at all, it somehow feels like his deepest confession.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his recent Runners World interview<\/a> with the legendary Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, Harry describes his fascination with the novelist\u2019s characters. \u201cWhen you write about sex and masculinity, your characters aren\u2019t all experts at sex \u2014 there are a lot of scenes of them fumbling around. There\u2019s an innocence to them, as well as vulnerability, and shame. That has definitely changed the way I view being masculine and being vulnerable.\u201d That\u2019s where he is in \u201cComing Up Roses.\u201d The power is all in that awkward shiver in his voice.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince his blockbuster Harry\u2019s House<\/a>, four years ago, he\u2019s been spotted in a few unexpected places \u2014 but as far as he can get from the celebrity hamster wheel. Where you find him isn\u2019t a red-carpet premiere or a fashion gala, but showing up in Rome at St. Peter\u2019s Square, just in time for the announcement of the new pope. Or surprising everyone by running the Tokyo Marathon \u2014 on Oscar night, no less. What a flex, especially since Harry ran the marathon in less time than the Oscars took. He ran the Berlin Marathon a few months later, in 2:59:13 \u2014 setting a new personal record.\u00a0As he once told Rolling Stone<\/a>, he spent his 25th birthday reading Murakami\u2019s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. \u201cI had a very Murakami birthday because I ended up staying in Tokyo on my own,\u201d he said in 2019. \u201cI went to this cafe. I sat and drank tea and read for five hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tHarry opened up about the personal turbulence behind the new album, as he turned 30 and fled the spotlight. He took refuge in Berlin, dancing in the electro clubs as just another anonymous reveler. \u201cOver the years, I had to say no to everything I was invited to,\u201d he said, \u201cwhether it was a friend\u2019s birthday, a trip somewhere amazing, an opening. I started to wonder if I was saying no because I really was so busy or because it was more comfortable than saying yes. When you close yourself off to protect yourself from people who might bring negativity into your life, you\u2019re also missing out on positive experiences.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKissco is his saying-yes album, with a grown-up flair for mischief. In his notes, he dedicates it \u201cfor those who helped me know when to say NO, when to say YES. For all my friends to dance to.\u201d But the disco in the album title is less a musical rule book than a spiritual quest, where the dance floor is where you go to escape yourself and dissolve into the communal pulse of the crowd.<\/p>\n

\n\tHarry\u2019s House is a concept album about home \u2014 finding and creating the place where you belong \u2014 but this one is about leaving home and moving on. Last time, he took his motto from the transcendentalist sage Ralph Waldo Emerson: \u201cEvery spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world.\u201d But four years after building Harry\u2019s House, Kissco is about getting out into the world, and getting lost in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRunning is a conversation with myself,\u201d Harry said in his Murakami interview, and he\u2019s having those conversations all over Kissco. It\u2019s full of songs about letting go and breaking free, made with a trusted circle of longtime collaborators, Tyler Johnson and executive producer Kid Harpoon. There\u2019s loads of Eighties electro-pop in the music \u2014 Depeche Mode, Prince, New Order, Talking Heads, and a synth-marimba solo to make Tears for Fears proud. Plus LCD Soundsystem, whose live shows were an inspiration for this album. The dance bangers are full of ecstatic release, like the single \u201cAperture,\u201d \u201cReady Steady Go,\u201d and \u201cSeason Two Weight Loss.\u201d \u201cDance No More\u201d explodes with filthy synth squiggles over the Chic-style bass line, with the chant \u201cGet your feet wet! Respect your mother!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs with all Harry Styles albums, it hits deeper as you live with the songs over time. \u201cAre You Listening Yet\u201d finds him deep in an \u201cAs It Was\u201d-style existential crisis. He recites a bleak diagnosis, reciting \u201cGod knows your life is on the brink\/And your therapist\u2019s well fed,\u201d before detailing the kind of breakdown where you ignore the therapist\u2019s actual words, forget your mantra, and seek solace in \u201cthe fix of all fixes, unintimate sex.\u201d \u201cPop\u201d is the song of a guy who loves pop as music, as mass communication, as a reason to prance in feather boas and spangled pants, but remains allergic to the celebrity hustle he outgrew in his teens. Tellingly, in this song, \u201cpop\u201d is the sound of a bubble bursting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cComing Up Roses\u201d ties in with \u201cPaint by Numbers,\u201d the album\u2019s other ballad, where he sings more openly than ever about the wages of fame. \u201cThey put an image in your head and now you\u2019re stuck with it,\u201d he laments, reflecting his own boy-band experience. It\u2019s powerful to hear him sing \u201cYou\u2019re the luckiest, oh, the irony\/Holding the weight of the American children whose hearts you break.\u201d It\u2019s the \u201cFreedom \u201990\u201d of One Direction. (When he pleads, \u201cI\u2019m not even 33,\u201d he inevitably reminds you of his late bandmate Liam Payne<\/a>, only 31 when he died in 2024.) But Harry finds his escape in the finale, \u201cCarla\u2019s Song,\u201d with its urgent synth-pop hook, realizing that everything he needs is inside him, raving, \u201cIt\u2019s all waiting just for you.\u201d It\u2019s an inspirational note to finish the album.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a long pop tradition where youthful songwriting prodigies take stock emotionally as they head into their thirties. So it\u2019s tough to resist calling this album Harry\u2019s Hejira \u2014 like his hero Joni Mitchell in 1976, he\u2019s 32, escaping the starmaking machinery and turning up the bass on a journey to find his adult self. Instead of driving through the desert, he\u2019s exploring Berlin nightlife, but either way, it\u2019s the refuge of the road, even though it\u2019s obviously the least Joni-like music he\u2019s ever made. (No dulcimers on the dance floor.) And since David Bowie\u2019s another Styles hero, the album might evoke another London boy who fled L.A. to go incognito in Berlin \u2014 some of the album was recorded at Hansa Studios, the same spot where Bowie made Heroes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut you can hide on a dance floor, in ways that you can\u2019t when it\u2019s two people alone. That\u2019s what makes \u201cComing Up Roses\u201d so powerful, with his voice front and center. It\u2019s the opposite of the \u201cunintimate sex\u201d he mourns earlier on the album; it\u2019s two people who give up trying to solve the mystery of it all, and surrender to the moment. Kissco is a whole album about learning to say yes instead of no, but \u201cComing Up Roses\u201d is the most complex yes on the album. It\u2019s Harry Styles at his most soulful and unguarded \u2014and it sums up everything he has to say on Kiss All the Time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Styles spends most of his delightful new album on the dance floor. Kiss All The Time. Disco,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,6437,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-334472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-harry-styles","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}