Harry Styles’ new LP feels like an event. Coming on the heels of the Grammy Award-winning “Harry’s House,” “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” is an experimental tour-de-force, a pop smorgasbord that is part homage, part electronica and part bacchanalia. But no matter how you slice it up, it’s all fun.
Listeners who relished the smooth sensuality of “Harry’s House” would be well-advised to buckle up. “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” is a wild, unpredictable ride, chock-full of sonic sound and fury. Co-produced by Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson, the album was made for the earbud era. A veritable feast for the ears that shimmers with sound — a stray guitar flourish here, a pulsing synthesizer there.
Several years in the making, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” found Styles living and working in Berlin — a career move that has been likened to the recording of David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy: “Low,” “Heroes” and “Lodger.” And the comparison to Bowie’s West German sojourn is apt: working with his producers, Styles has clearly immersed himself in the avant-garde, taking chances, and embracing idiosyncrasy.
But by his own admission, Styles attributes the vivid sonic textures of his latest album to the “joyous” influence of LCD Soundsystem. And that sense of joy and wonder radiates with eroticism and humor at nearly every turn, from the pulsing synthesizer and muted vocals of “Aperture,” the LP’s lead, chart-topping single, to “Coming Up Roses,” an orchestral ballad that unleashes a fusillade of strings into the proceedings.
Not to be outdone by the album’s soaring musical ambience, Styles’ lyrics never disappoint, blending his penchant for witticism with pop-culture philosophy. With “Season 2 Weight Loss,” he punctures the ego-driven obsessions of our age, reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously, while simultaneously living in a world in which a casual remark on social media can ignite a firestorm. “It’s kind of sad,” he sings, “but there’s something I know / Too many things for you to analyze.” The remedy, he points out, is right there in front of us: “Let light come in once in a while.”
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Although it may seem naïve, on the surface, to stoop to such mundanity — a variation on our era’s “go outside and touch grass” naturalism — Styles may be genuinely onto something. With songs like “Paint by Numbers,” he pauses the album’s disco thrum to enjoy the simple pleasures of, well, living. Working his acoustic guitar with a French horn accompaniment — French horns! — he dares us to balance our relentless socioeconomic drive with our deep need to hang out, to while away the hours. “It’s a lifetime of learnin’ to paint by numbers,” he sings, “And watchin’ the colors run.”
For some listeners, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” may seem like an unwelcome shift away from the tried-and-true pop sensibilities of “Harry’s House.” But rest assured that Styles’ heartwarming sense of wit and whimsy are fully in evidence. In “Are You Listening Yet?” he advises us, no matter what, to never stray too far away from the joy-inducing possibilities of music — whether it be LCD Soundsystem or, say, Harry Styles. “If you must join a movement,” he advises, tongue-in-cheek, “make sure there’s dancing.”
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