The Pop Corporation

Harry Styles doesn’t need reviews to help him being a continued success. He’s kinda quirky and well dressed enough that will keep his fanbase rabid – the nice tailoring will keep him ahead of his peers whatever music he puts out.

And so, to his new album, ‘Kiss All The Time – Disco, Occasionally’, which is wilfully cocking an eyebrow with that title, because as we’ve already established – he’s not really like other popstars – he’s got nice high waisted suit trousers and seems a bit above it all, while simultaneously being grateful for the stardom.

What circles is he moving in now? He’s been in Italy, he’s hanging around with cool people, he’s certainly not playing the same sport as say, Tate McRae or even his former bandmates in One Direction – he’s a bit arch, like The 1975, and he’s been announced as the curator of the Meltdown festival, which usually goes to the likes of Scott Walker and Yoko Ono.

Wonky album titles, slightly artsy choreography and cheekbones, Harry Styles is indeed one of our more interesting popstars – but what is it about him that is so frustrating and feels like so many opportunities missed?

Maybe it’s because this album is delivered in continuously muted tones that it simultaneously feels kinda interesting, but also, kinda lacking. It’s all very 3am, post night out, taking your coat off music, largely. It’s all a bit vague, rather than vogue. And maybe that’s intentional on his part, no longer willing to be part of the arms race for the top, and comfortable in his own lane?

There’s moment where you think ‘aha! He’s warming up now!’ on tracks like ‘Ready Steady Go’, with its twangy Tame Impala bassline and nod to NYC Indie Sleaze, and you think there might just be some life to be had in this album.

But then, in ‘Taste Back’, he sings “dinners with your high school friends and your favourite pastries”, and you just find yourself wearily sighing, and ‘American Girls’ is somehow deemed a single, despite never getting above a plodding heart rate.

‘Coming Up Roses’ at least sounds like a finished song, with its orchestral ornamentations and soft vocals, and maybe that’s why this album is so frustrating – because when songs sound like they’ve had more of a gestation period, and when they’ve got focus, they’re good. Too often, songs on this record end up feeling so half baked, with a great song absolutely desperate to climb out of the soup.

‘Dance No More’ has some of that wonky funk from, say, Peter Gabriel, that Styles covered on the radio that one time, and again, it grooves along quite nicely, but again, it feels like it could have done with a kick up the arse so it could be fully realised as some dancefloor dynamite.

When lead single ‘Aperture’ was released, it almost felt like a false start to precede the album, so if we were to reimagine Harry Styles, this was the thing to get us acclimatised, before the real meat of the album was served up. It was indicative of the way the album mostly plays out – basically, it’s all fine, it’s all sorta okay, passable, not jarring, and certainly not going to get your blood pumping.

There’s no ‘Watermelon Sugar’, ‘As It Was’, or ‘Adore You’ on this album and it’s clear that wasn’t Styles’ intention – but it is difficult not to shake off the nagging feeling it really could have done with one or two of them to make the album feel like it was worth it.

Instead, what we’re left with is the feeling of having thumbed through a mildly interesting coffee table book, filled with vignettes and snapshots, rather than anything substantial.

And yet, it’s hard to hate this as at least Harry has had a swing at something different. Who else is putting skittering beats and post rock electronics on a song called ‘Season 2 Weight Loss’, right?

This isn’t a hateful LP, and there’s something about the way Styles is living his life at the moment where you still want to root for him – but is this album any good?

It’s not got enough going for it for anyone who isn’t one of his millions of fans who had already decided they liked it before even pressing play on it.

In cold light, it’s fine. It’s just fine.