It’s Harry’s house, we’re just living in it… Harry Styles has broken his own record with the biggest sales week of his career to date, opening at number one in album charts around the world.
The UK pop star has sold over a million units of his fourth album, Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally, achieving the highest week-one sales for a male artist in almost a decade.
The Grammy winner debuted at number one in the US on the Billboard 200 chart and in the UK, where he scored a chart double thanks to his chart-topping single “American Girls”.
With UK week-one sales of 183,000, he comfortably beat the 113,000 copies sold in the first week he released his third album, Harry’s House.
Kiss All the Time… has also seen the highest first-week vinyl sales for any UK artist this century.
Styles, 32, is back in the spotlight following the release of his new album, which The Independent praised in its four-star review for its “newfound clarity and, more importantly, music that actually sounds like him”.
“It’s almost a relief to have Styles back, given how women in pop have been doing so much of the work in recent years,” the review said. “And really, he has no true male peer (artists such as Bad Bunny, Sam Fender and The Weeknd excel in their own lanes), as much as newcomers such as Benson Boone might try. No one can match his level of pizzazz.”
Styles celebrated his album release with a special one-off show at the Co-op Live arena in Manchester, which was filmed as an exclusive for Netflix, along with a double-duty stint as host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live the following weekend.
Reviewing the Co-op Live show for The Independent, critic Hannah Ewens praised Styles’s showmanship and the “controlled, elegant” nature of the gig, along with the production that brought “new dimensions” to his latest album.
Styles will next set out on a seven-city residency tour, including 30 shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden and a 12-night run at Wembley Stadium in London.
He will be supported by special guests including Shania Twain, Robyn, Jorja Smith and Jamie xx on select dates.
