Louis Tomlinson ‘How Did I Get Here?’ review: a glass half full
The artist is embracing a new era of optimism in his life, reflected in his bright and bold third album
“It’s been a long time since, professionally and personally, I’ve been able to have a little spring in my step,” Louis Tomlinson told Rolling Stone UK in our recent cover feature about his new album. Despite the darkness that has seemed to follow him around in recent years, the singer made his third studio album from a significantly sunnier vantage point. “Hopefully that comes across in the record,” he told us.
Since the dissolution of One Direction, its members have gone in wildly different directions on their respective solo careers. Tomlinson has leaned into his indie tendencies on his two albums – 2020’s Walls and 2022 follow-up Faith in the Future – while giving a leg up to hungry new British bands with support slots on tour.
By album three – the sunny, electrifying How Did I Get Here? – Tomlinson seems to have finally found his voice away from the band. Lead single ‘Lemonade’ bursts with summery energy and a vibrancy that defines the record. Tomlinson has described it as his “best chance” at a radio hit in the post-One Direction era, which has historically “been a fucking fight for me” in his solo career.
It seems, then, that Tomlinson has a few scores to settle. Rather than come out swinging though, he goes about proving the doubters wrong by kicking his feet up and making his most luxurious and carefree music yet. On ‘Sunflowers’, he’s “sick and tired of smoking in the rain” and “dreaming of a temporary heaven” – both wants achieved through decamping to Costa Rica for sun-kissed recording sessions for the album.
On the psychedelic ‘Lazy’ and funky ‘Imposter’, he transmits the mental clarity and physical beauty of this time perfectly. It’s juxtaposed with the Oasis-like anthemic na-ture of ‘Dark to Light’ and the enormous ‘Last Night’. Even on the album’s sonically heavier moments, every note carries a lightness and air about it, infused with Tomlin-son’s glass-half-full mantra.
In our cover feature, Tomlinson was the first to admit that his solo career began as an expected but unfocused next step in his musical journey. “I would have struggled to say that I’m an artist: an individual artist in my own right,” he said of those beginnings. “But I definitely feel like I can now.” On How Did I Get Here?, he tracks the journey from band to solo artist, from darkness to light, and from confusion to pure, brilliant understanding.