Harry Styles performs onstage during the Brit Awards 2023 at the O2 Arena on Feb. 11, 2023, in London. Credit: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images via TNS
Harry Styles’ fourth album, “Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally,” was released Friday. It’s been met with mixed reviews across the board, with Pitchfork rating it a 5.6/10. Some say it’s too much disco and not enough kissing — for others, it’s the opposite.?
The Lantern’s Managing Design Editor, Audrey Coleman, and Managing Arts & Life Editor, Grayson Newbourn, had conflicting views on Styles’ latest album. Click the link below to be redirected to the other review.?
Link: ‘Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally’ falls short of the rest of Harry Styles’ discography
“Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally” is arguably one of Styles’ best works. It likely won’t receive the amount of critical acclaim as his past albums, but that isn’t a reflection on the work itself — it’s a reflection of his broader, mainstream audience who expected a few new songs to toss on their party playlists.?
It should be noted that Styles took a different approach with his latest work. A synth-heavy album with a disco-inspired sound, obviously, the album’s sequencing is cohesive, with slower tracks sprinkled throughout to create variance in its pacing.?
There are definitely songs on the album that fill the public’s need for club anthems, but early critiques I’ve seen have taken issue with the fact that it isn’t a through-and-through disco album. It’s almost as though they’ve missed the “occasionally” after “disco,” and the former half of the album title, “Kiss All The Time.” There’s a certain beauty to the stripped-down vulnerability of its slower tracks.?
“Aperture” and “American Girls” were the objectively correct choices for its leading singles. They’re most representative of his distinctive sound, as well as the sound listeners were hoping for. “Aperture” is a song that leans heavily on its crisp vocals and repetition throughout its chorus and bridge. It’s a song about letting love and light into your life, with the chorus’ “We belong together / It finally appears it’s only love” and the bridge’s “I won’t stray from it, I don’t know these spaces / Time won’t wait on me, I wanna know what safe is” exemplifying this meaning.
“American Girls” is a great highlight of Styles’ vocals and is the first we really get to hear them shine on this album.?
The next couple of songs on the album are unfortunately skips for me — “Ready, Steady, Go!” has an intense beat and is quite the fun song, but nothing about it really stuck out. “Are You Listening Yet?” is monotonous and doesn’t offer much vocally, as it’s more spoken-word than singing. It would translate well to a live audience though, as there seems to be room for crowd interaction.
“Taste Back” is an enjoyable listen, but is nothing out of the ordinary. I could hear this on the radio.?
“The Waiting Game” is the second best song on the album. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Styles said it was the first song he wrote after moving to Italy and he was “right in that zone of reflection and what we’re talking about of the cycle of like behaving the same way, writing songs about it, getting rewarded for that.”
It opens with a familiar, lofi-esque beat that is simple and mesmerizing. The same goes for his vocals — it’s a steady, drum-driven track with a heavy emphasis on its lyricism. Styles’ trend of repetition returns again at the end of the song, stressing the lines “Playing the waiting game / When it all adds up to nothing” as the music fades. It can seem monotonous, but that is precisely what makes it so strong.
“Season 2 Weight Loss” is OK, but not that memorable in comparison to other tracks.?
“Coming Up Roses” is yet another slow track that really blows you away. It does feign similarity to other tracks on the album in terms of its beat, but its use of orchestral instruments combined with Styles’ storytelling makes it one of the album’s best. It’s a typical ballad about the struggle balancing hope and doubt in a relationship, the warmth of stability but the fear of external desire. It’s a palette cleanser before the next few tracks.
“Pop” is the song that will likely make its way into those aforementioned club playlists. It’s the epitome of disco, an upbeat pop anthem that lives up to its name. It’s a strong song on the album and will thrive even more on the radio.
“Dance No More” is another strong disco song, but it lacks in its lyricism and blends seamlessly into “Pop.” This is normally a good thing in an album, but less so when it’s genuinely hard to decipher when one track ends and the other begins. It’s in the same vein as its predecessor but is fun nonetheless.?
“Paint By Numbers” is the best song on the album. It’s the saddest, it’s the slowest, it’s the one most likely to make you cry. Fans have speculated that the song is about Liam Payne, his former One Direction band member who passed away in 2024. Others suspect it refers to his past relationship with actress and director Olivia Wilde; the pair split in 2022.?
Lyrics such as “It’s a lifetime of picking from one or the other / Kids with water guns, watch them run,” tie back to Styles’ boyband origins, with footage widely available of the band members messing around on stage. Other lines, such as “When they put an image in your head, and now you’re stuck with it / You’re the luckiest, oh, the irony / Holding the weight of the American children whose hearts you break,” speaking to his time in the band and the expectations that still weigh heavy on him.?
“Carla’s Song” is alright, but again, not memorable. I think it would have been stronger had it not been the concluding song.?
Overall, “Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally” may not be what fans were expecting or what they wanted, but its experimental disco-pop sound mixed with vulnerable and authentic ballads of love and his life in the spotlight make it worth the listen.?
Rating: 3.75/5
