Harry Styles Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.

March 11, 2026·25 min·2 clips

Maria Sherman reveals why Harry Styles' new album feels 'blocked' despite being teed up as his 'freedom' moment.

Harry Styles is trying a turn. After Harry's House won Album of the Year at the Grammys, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. lands as a pretty sharp follow up, with dance floors and post-punk running through it. It still swoons, of course. Stephen Thompson sets it up as the fourth solo record after One Direction, then brings Hazel Sills and Maria Sherman into the roundtable. The reference pile builds fast. Hot Chip and LCD Sound System come up, but Stephen reaches for Peter Gabriel's Big Time to get at one song's big, grabby burst of sound. That jolt matters. For him, the back half is where the album wakes up and gives the experiment some muscle. Hazel hears it too. The later songs sound more recognizably like Harry Styles to her, especially Dance No More and Pop, where the old sonic signatures peek through. That is where the conversation gets more useful. Nobody is calling this a house record, and nobody quite buys it as disco either. Maybe that is the smart move. The disco-pop wave may already have burned bright through Espresso and Dua Lipa, so Styles heads somewhere else: dance punk, indie mood, a less obvious route to the floor. Still, the panel keeps circling back to what feels absent. The restraint sounds deliberate, but it also makes the record feel smaller than it could. Late in the conversation, Justin Bieber's Swag becomes a comparison point for early-thirties pop, parenthood, relationships, and singers trying to make adulthood audible without spelling everything out.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Pop Culture Happy Hour