If you’re anything like me, the March 26 release of Harry Styles’s “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” was not just any other album release, but a historical moment equivalent to the moon landing.
Finally through his 137th marathon, Styles blessed us with a 12-track record and 30-night residency at Madison Square Garden.
His lead single “Aperture,” combined with the album’s name seemed to promise fans a dancey, club-ready record filled with more laser sound effects.
“I was expecting the album to just kind of all sound like that, but I think the album went above my expectations. There was a lot more diversity between the songs which I really liked,” sophomore Abbey Minton said.
What we received might have missed the mark, but offers surprising gifts hidden within the folds of introspective synth combinations and a groovy baseline.
The majority of the album is less disco and more indie pop, reminiscent of the 1975 or LCD Soundsystem. Upbeat standouts are “Pop,” “Taste Back,” and “Ready Steady Go!” which boasts an infectious baseline and fun vocal distortions that Styles executed with a megaphone during his One Night In Manchester Netflix special.
“[My favorite song was] ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ because I really like the bridge part where there’s a beat drop, which I feel like isn’t a normal thing in a lot of his songs,” sophomore Abbey Minton said. “It just felt more like a party song, which was very fun. I can just listen to it when I’m doing my homework in the morning, and feel just a little bit better about the day.”
The severely underrated “Season Two Weight Loss” is a hidden gem. It’s carried by its experimental drumbeat, rhythmic synths, and chant-like chorus where Styles is, “Holding out. Hoping love will come around.”
“American Girls” and “Waiting Game” contain fairly surface level lyrics and a catchy but forgettable melody reminiscent of One Direction’s sound.
The two novel “slow songs” on the album, “Paint By Numbers” and Coming Up Roses”
follow the painfully cliché rule that you need to sacrifice instrumental interest for emotional value.
Despite strong lines such as “what a gift it is to be noticed but it’s nothing to do with me,” there is not much that is innovative or interesting about either of these tracks, save for the gorgeous string section in “Coming Up Roses.”
I find myself wishing that if Styles was going to make a “disco” record he would fully commit to it and cut out the obligatory sad songs in favor of thematic cohesion.
“I think they are kind of randomly thrown in there. I just wish he had made the order of songs a little bit better, with not having a really upbeat song go into ‘Coming Up Roses,’” Whitehead said.
“Dance No More” assumes the role of the sole real disco track in the project, making its presence necessary and refreshing in the realm of moody pop.
Sonically, it’s nothing revolutionary but it nails that infectious baseline and memorable chorus, filled with cheeky lines like “Be a good girl, go get ‘em fox,” that I will be screaming at Madison Square Garden.
The album’s closer, “Carla’s Song” is only what I can describe as the most quintessentially ‘Harry Styles’ Harry Styles song out there. Even though it isn’t the most complex song on the album, it’s surely the most emotional.
The repetition of “I know what you really like” makes it feel introspective, important, and thus it becomes impactful. The simple but wonderfully delivered words “it’s all waiting there for you” finish the album off perfectly, with hope.
Drawing a connection all the way back to the first song “Aperture”, this track truly feels like letting the light in.
“It was just a really nice closer. There’s something so special about an album all coming together, you feel like it’s kind of like the end of a movie or a story,” Minton said.
Maybe the record doesn’t contain the same instant hits “Harry’s House” does, but maybe it doesn’t need to. Styles’s ability to change his artistry only suggests his positive outlook on creative evolution, and makes the album feel deeply loved by its creator.
“The results are an album that feels liberated and full of light, even in its more melancholy moments,” NME magazine said.
“Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally” offers us subtlety in its musical composition, with impressively consistent softness throughout. While to some dissenters, the first listen is unmagical, after a few late night drives, the album becomes the backing track we all want in our lives.
“I used to listen to only ‘Taste Back,’ Waiting Game,’ ‘Aperture,’ and ‘American Girls,’ but now I put that whole album on whenever I’m in the gym, [or] when I’m studying,” Whitehead said.
Maybe it isn’t the actual night out in the club, so what? Instead, it encapsulates the quieter moments. This album feels like waiting outside the bathroom and having a little cry, or when you step out from the darkness that morning after and feel the light hit your face.
