Harry Styles' Fourth Album Embraces Subtlety Over Pop Anthems
The launch of Harry Styles' fourth solo album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, underscores his monumental status in the music industry. Record stores across the UK are opening at midnight or early morning on release day to accommodate eager fans. Styles has been named curator of this year's Meltdown festival at London's Southbank Centre, joining an elite list that includes Scott Walker, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Ornette Coleman, and David Bowie. At the recent Brit awards, he delivered a beautifully choreographed performance of the lead single Aperture, alongside a comedy skit that essentially served as a two-and-a-half-minute advertisement for the new album, highlighting his star power.
Ambitious Tour Strategy Reflects Fan Devotion
Most strikingly, Styles' accompanying tour largely avoids traditional touring in favor of lengthy residencies in one venue per country or continent. North America will be covered by a staggering 30 dates at New York's Madison Square Garden, suggesting that fans are expected to travel cross-country to see him. This expectation proved accurate, with 11.5 million people applying for tickets to the New York shows alone.
Musical Approach: Muted and Atmospheric
The album itself diverges from Styles' previous pop hits like As It Was or Watermelon Sugar. Instead, it embraces a muted, subtle, and pleasant sound. Tracks such as American Girls feature mid-tempo house beats with plangent piano chords, while Paint By Numbers leans into acoustic singer-songwriter styles. Much of the music evokes a small-hours atmosphere, with drawn curtains against the dawn.
Even Are You Listening Yet?, which includes a clattering dance rhythm, a bassline reminiscent of Reel 2 Real's I Like to Move It, and a spoken word vocal recalling Robbie Williams' Rock DJ, manages to sound understated due to its unconventional chorus structure.
Highlights and Shortfalls of the Muted Style
Painting everything in muted shades is a risk that intermittently pays off. On the positive side, it creates a unified atmosphere, making the album feel cohesive rather than a mere collection of tracks. Moments of finely crafted subtlety lure listeners in, such as:
- Season 2 Weight Loss with its echoing breakbeat, ghostly backing vocals, and splashes of analogue synth.
- Carla's Song, where Styles' voice and gauzy electronics float over a techno-paced four-four pulse.
- Coming Up Roses, featuring pizzicato strings and intimate vocals.
However, there are points where the album feels all mood and no material. Tracks like The Waiting Game, Taste Back, and Pop pass by pleasantly but fail to linger in memory, highlighting a sense of musical vagueness.
Lyrical Opacity: A Diary in Code?
This musical vagueness is compounded by lyrical issues. Styles has described the lyrics as a long diary entry about his life between albums, much of it spent in Italy. Yet, they often feel cryptic, as if written in code to obscure meaning. For example, on Ready, Steady, Go!, he sings: But you call Leon / You call it only in my head / Cause you've got enough / While we do too much / But you call Leon / You did call it only in my head. Listeners may find themselves grasping for meaning, only to give up baffled by verses like those on Pop: Katie's waiting to be your game-day saviour / First time tasting it / It's nice to mix two flavours together / Mmmm.
This opacity might be a deliberate move to counter the current obsession with dissecting songs for gossip about pop stars' private lives, but it leaves the album feeling occasionally too obscure.
A Laudable Departure from Desperation
In an era where some pop stars cling to relevance through rival-bashing or endless limited editions, there's something laudable about an album that doesn't seem desperate to be loved. Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally embraces artistic risk, even if the results are sometimes too opaque. Commercially, its flaws are beside the point, given Styles' guaranteed success. With such unwavering fan support, why not please oneself? The album is set for release on 6 March, marking another chapter in Styles' evolving career.
