The third solo album of former One Direction member Louis Tomlinson is a bright and buzzy record for dark and dreary times.
It’s been a long time since the glory days of One Direction, and Louis Tomlinson has come a long way as a solo artist since. Shaking off a shadow like that is no simple thing, but with How Did I Get Here?, he’s got a sharp and sunny sound that’s primed to pull him into the limelight.
This new album follows a few tough years for Tomlinson. Loss can send anyone to their knees, but after spending time recording this new album on a songwriting camp in Costa Rica, its plain to hear that Tomlinson has taken a breath and let the Caribbean sun soak into every beat of these new tracks.
Tomlinson himself said, “I don’t think songs like ‘Lemonade’, ‘Sunflowers’ and ‘Lazy’ would have happened without Costa Rica..I literally spent too long in England with it raining all the time, thinking, ‘I want this record to feel more summery.’ But that wouldn’t have happened if I’d carried on writing in England.”
That was during a cover story chat with Rolling Stone UK, in which Tomlinson himself described the wider album as a “sunny departure” from the “darkness that was a bit of the perception with me, musically and also personally”.
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In her positive album review from Rolling Stone, Maya Georgi wrote, “across the 12 tracks, Tomlinson swaggers through bass-heavy, funk-inspired pop rock that shimmers and radiates. With the help of producer Nicholas Rebscher, tracks like “Imposter” and “Sanity” will no doubt go off in a live setting.”
The Independent’s Helen Brown acknowledged the emotional transformations that Tomlinson has lived through, and how they impacted this new album, writing “I doubt many listeners would be able to identify these as Tomlinson songs. But this is a likable, grounded collection of sunny-side-up pop from a likeable, grounded guy.”
Perhaps it’s the age-old saying that practice makes perfect. Imperfect scenarios and hard roads aside, Tomlinson has made it far for the former member of a band as big as One Direction, and he’s done away with unconfidence, telling Rolling Stone UK that “I felt a bit like a deer in the headlights when I first started my solo career.”
“It was very much like I was on this train, and I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I was going [somewhere] and trying to work myself out as an artist and also as a person. And you know, that had to be done really publicly. But I feel a lot more accomplished now.”
How Did I Get Here? isn’t just a third album for Louis Tomlinson; it’s a stepping-off point. A reinvention of a sonic rainbow born from a personal hurricane, and its messages of optimism are oh-so timely. We don’t need to recount the horrible current affairs headlines, but they’re well counterbalanced with a bit of sonic therapy, achieved quickly when you press play on this record.
