Harry Styles continues his streak of love themes with a particular focus on self-love and personal growth in his fourth studio album, “Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.” Styles’ lyricism captures the strong emotions felt within the experiences of love and growth from the creative, light imagery seen in “Aperture” to talk of casual relationships in “Are You Listening Yet?” and the complications that come with rekindling emotions in “Taste Back.”
“‘Aperture’ felt like a perfect start,” said Styles in an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music. It successfully introduces the album because it’s about acknowledging wrongdoings and allowing room for personal growth. This opening song encapsulates the main themes of the album, both lyrically and sonically. Discussions of self-reflection, love and forgiveness are present throughout the entire album, matched with the ups-and-downs mirrored in the fluctuating melodies.
“American Girls” is sonically similar to Styles’ third studio album, “Harry’s House,” as it contains less synth and more pop tones than most other songs on the new album. The lyrics explore Styles’ feelings around watching his close friends get married and realizing that love isn’t spotless, but it is still attainable and valuable.
Styles reveals that the album’s oldest song is “Are You Listening Yet?” The vocals are a soliloquy expressing struggles with personal responsibility and self discipline. The lyrics are meant to be a message from the speaker to the speaker, bringing to life the vision of people trying to convince themselves to do the right thing for themselves. In the lyric, “Oh, can you hear the voice, the/ one inside your head?/ Oh, are you listening yet?” the character knows what is right, but it is up to them to make that decision. They just have to listen. The fast beats to this song reflect how these inner thoughts might run through someone’s mind quickly and chaotically.
Continuing the theme of self-reflection, “The Waiting Game” is a reflection on “the cycle of behaving the same way, writing songs about it, getting rewarded for that.” This song explores the idea of self-awareness in the context of failing to improve oneself and using excuses to get away with it. The line, “You try and you always justify/ Playing the waiting game/ When it all adds up to nothing,” the character acknowledges their lack of self-improvement and personal growth.
In “Coming Up Roses,” the potential bad consequences of a relationship are discussed. The line, “Just for tonight, let’s go/ Hangover chasing,” suggests making impulsive decisions without worrying about their impact on the future, but hope is still present in the line, “There’s only me and you.” Being one of the slower songs on the album, listeners will be allured by its meaningful lyricism and heartfelt tone.
The most dance-eliciting songs on the dance-pop record are “Aperture,” “Ready, Steady, Go!,” “Pop” and “Dance No More.” These songs are where listeners will detect the occasional disco instrumentals that might be expected from “Disco, occasionally” being in the title of the album. As the majority of the album was not quite as upbeat and jumpy as one may have expected it to be, emphasis on the “occasionally” is important to note.
Styles claims that one of the record’s most significant features to him is “Carla’s Song,” in which he expresses the feeling of discovering the joys of life. Once again, he uses light imagery as metaphors in the lines, “Saw the light in the gold that/ You discovered” and “Till your eyes open on the/ Changing summer light.” The imagery of light heard throughout the album’s lyrics can be mirrored by the visual of a disco ball, such as the one on the album cover, offering the image of different types and shades of light to reflect various emotions and experiences elicited by the album’s themes.
Samantha Stapleton is a sophomore studying professional and public writing with a particular interest in writing poetry and reading classic literature.
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