Harry Styles Wants Us to Rethink Harry Styles But he is too restrained by his pop instincts to fully embody the 2000s electro-rocker that his new album teases.

By Craig Jenkins

His new album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, threatens to be a genre reinvention it does not necessarily fully commit to. Photo: Harry Styles via YouTube

Harry Styles auditioned for The X-Factor in 2010 when he was 16 and has rarely been out of the spotlight ever since. His time in One Direction and his trio of successful solo albums (and films with diverging critical responses) must’ve been exhausting because he now speaks of finally escaping the hamster-wheel grind in 2023, after a long world tour for 2022’s Grammy-winning Harry’s House, like his own Rumspringa. While on hiatus, Styles rediscovered himself both alone and in crowds, fixating on long distance running, family, and electronic music. He trained for marathons after reading Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami’s memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running; he had a blast watching LCD Soundsystem in Madrid and Brixton and Radiohead on their 2025 reunion tour; he did what David Bowie also did around 30 and decamped to Berlin to obsess over synthesizers. Now 32, Styles has reemerged with his fourth album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, which threatens to be a genre reinvention it does not necessarily fully commit to. His latest work treasures motion in both its study of dance music that straddles the 20th and 21st centuries and in its gentle tug away from pure pop. The result is a zanier and livelier ride than the cloistered and predictable Harry’s House.

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