It’s an unusually rewarding week for Directioners, as Zayn Malik gets his Las Vegas residency underway, Harry Styles sets up his next album cycle, and Louis Tomlinson drops his new studio album.
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Arriving at the stroke of midnight, How Did I Get Here? (via BMG) is Tomlinson’s third studio effort. As a songwriter, Tomlinson is “diving deeper into who he is than ever before,” reads a statement, as the pop artist fleshed out a handful of initial ideas in the English countryside before getting down to work in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica for three weeks in early 2025.
On it, the Brit worked alongside primary collaborator and co-producer Nico Rebscher (Aurora, Alice Merton), the finished product spanning 12 songs, including the title track, plus the anthemic “Lemonade,” “Palaces” and “Imposter,” which gets a push with a new music video starring James Nelson-Joyce (Mount Pleasant, The Outlaws).
After an era-conquering moment as a member of One Direction, which went on an indefinite hiatus in 2016, Tomlinson broke out with his debut album, Walls, in 2020. The title peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, and at No. 4 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart, and has shifted over 1.2 million copies worldwide, with nearly 1 billion total streams, reps say.
His followup, 2022’s Faith in the Future, went all the way to No. 1 in the U.K. and No. 5 in the U.S.
There’s more to come. Later in 2026, he and Zayn will star in a Netflix docuseries, capturing the shared adventure they took across the United States last year. And, in his cover story with Billboard, he hints that his upcoming tour world tour in support of the new album will have a more traditional arena-pop feel.
“The confidence that I’ve built up from the last two tours was vital for me. What I love about those live moments is it doesn’t really leave any room for self-doubt — and I definitely struggled with that, post [One Direction],” he explains. “But being in those live spaces and delivering night after night, it’s undeniable. So I’m coming into this record revitalized in my confidence. It’s a nice feeling.”
The How Did We Get Here? world arena tour will first visit North America and Europe, kicking off June 3 at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, Canada, and is slated to wrap July 24 at Kaseya Center in Miami, FL. Tomlinson gets a warmup with a special underplay show at Racket in New York this Friday, Jan. 23, following a guest spot Thursday performing and talking on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Stream How Did We Get Here? in full below.
