After nearly two years out of the public eye, Harry Styles has finally come out of hiding. Since his last show from his four-year-long world tour, fans have heard almost nothing from him–no social media posts, no interviews, just the occasional candid paparazzi photo or people spotting him running the Tokyo marathon. He’s wasting no time, by performing his new single, released ahead of his upcoming album, at the BRIT Awards. His single “Aperture” debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in its first week, showing that the excitement around his return has yet to fade out. 

The demand for his concerts proves it too: the last time he had a residency at MSG, he did 15 nights, and this time that number has doubled, with tickets nearly impossible to get. Styles has built one of the most loyal fan bases in music today, from something that comes not just from his songs but from the welcoming community he’s created through them.

Now, there’s a lot of discourse about his new album “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally”. A lot of his die-hard fans absolutely love it, obviously, but there are also a good number who do not. There are also mixed opinions amongst some casual listeners, and this is definitely the most controversial reaction one of his albums has ever received. I will be ranking and giving my honest opinion on each and every song in the album to lay out/share where I stand in this whole debate.

1. Aperture

Favorite lyric: “It’s best you know what you don’t.”

This song will forever be perfect to me because of it being the first thing Harry put out since he was gone for two years. It kind of reminds me of his song “Treat People With Kindness”, which promotes inclusivity and love. It’s energetic and upbeat with choir vocals. It almost gives you a hope for humanity, and there’s just something so beautiful about that. 

2. American Girls

Favorite lyric: “I’ve seen it in stages all over the world.”

For each song in this album, I can recall at least one of his past songs that it almost resembles or reminds me of. This one is pretty different. To tell the truth, I didn’t like it much when I initially heard it, but after listening to the album over ten times, it’s become one of my favorites. I love it, and it’s truly unlike any song he’s ever written. It’s about watching his friends have these deep, genuine connections with American girls. Quite literally. It’s also seen as a direct jab at the “leave america” trend that occurred during his international leg of his tour, HSLOT, where fans would shout the lyric “Leave America” during his performance of “As It Was,” urging him to stop spending so much time in the U.S. and stay in the UK instead, which I love.

3. Ready, Steady, Go!

Favorite lyric: “Two times is one too many.”

I do like the lyrics of the song. It’s about the unpredictable rush of a relationship that’s moving more quickly than both people can fully comprehend and alludes to an underlying emotional imbalance while reflecting moments of youthful excitement and the anxious thrill of excitement. Although the words are clever, this one just didn’t stick out to me. I think it’s really cool because there’s also some EDM/tempo elements mixed in. So I’d play it in the car if I’m on AUX, but I probably wouldn’t willingly play it on my AirPods.

4. Are You Listening Yet?

Favorite lyric: “God knows your life is on the brink and your therapist’s well-fed.”

When he repeatedly says “are you listening yet?”, It feels almost as if he’s screaming at me to confront patterns and habits I ignore. The energetic instrumentals capture tensions between awareness and action. In an interview with Zane Lowe, he explained that this was one of the earliest songs written for the album and that it came from a moment when he began recognizing recurring situations in his life that he could no longer ignore. I imagine it sounds like the moment when someone finally decides to listen to themselves and make a change. The beat perfectly mends with the message of the lyrics.

5. Taste Back

Favorite lyric: “Must be lonely out in Paris if you talk like that.”

This is my second favorite song on the album. I love the way he articulated that bittersweet feeling of picking between familiarity and the difficulty to leave the past behind for the better because everyone faces this issue, whether it’s through romantic relationships, friendship, work, family, etc. I also like the repetition of asking if they’ve “got their taste back” or simply “just need a little love.” On top of the lyrics being perfect, so is the music, once again. 

6. The Waiting Game

Favorite lyric: “You can romanticize your shortcomings.”

I find this song pretty relatable. It kind of makes you reflect on your own life. We all create false narratives to justify things in our life, and for many, the last thing we’ll do is take real action. So even if you’re struggling with self-awareness and personal accountability or you’ve overcome it, it still gives you something to think about, whether it’s how you’re gonna change it or looking back on how you overcame it and who you were before. Again, I have nothing bad to say about the song. I’ve listened to it at least eight times, and I haven’t found anything I’ve disliked. 

7. Season 2 Weight Loss

Favorite lyric: “You want a piece or nothing at all?”

I love the hyper-specific title that has so much duality to it and has an underlying meaning that isn’t initially revealed. It’s a metaphor for gaining confidence in the public eye. The song isn’t about actual dieting or physical weight loss. Instead, he describes it as the “mission statement” for the album. It explores the themes of personal evolution and returning as a “stronger version” of himself. The idea of the title is when a show becomes a hit and the cast returns for the second season looking “amazing” because they now have access to trainers and nutritionists, which is exactly what Harry did in the two years of his absence. It’s almost like he broke the fourth wall. This can be interpreted by people in millions of different situations and points in their lives. For him, it was navigating through finding himself in the public eye. For the teenage girl listening to it from her bedroom, it could be about finding her footing in high school or within her friend group.

8. Coming Up Roses

Favorite lyric: “There’s only me and you.”

I think the lyrics are so raw, and the instrumentals mix perfectly with the meaning. My head instantly imagines a compilation of my favorite fictional TV couples with the song playing in the background. It’s absolutely perfect. And although I love his more upbeat songs, which is something he’s reintroduced into his music with this album, the songs that are slower and tame are my favorite. 

9. Pop

Favorite lyric: “Am I in over my head? This could go anywhere.”

I love this one because it reminds me of the “Harry’s House” era. “Pop” is a reference to another one of his songs, “Cinema”, when he says “I bring the pop to the cinema, you pop when we get intimate”, so it feels like we’re continuing something. Don’t ask me to elaborate, but it’s the jazzier older sister of “Cinema”. I love the rhythm, the beat drops and the lyrics. At the end, it seems like the song is over because there’s around 20 seconds of just instrumentals, but then it continues. I usually find that annoying and unnecessary, but I ate it up here.

10. Dance No More

Favorite lyric: “It’s feeling like the music has been heaven-sent.”

There’s nothing I can critique about this song. It’s like the unfiltered middle child of the album. It’s upbeat and catchy. It just makes you want to dance around with your friends or go for a drive with the windows down. With that, I’d still probably skip it one out of five times. It explores the tensions between participating in life and performing for others, suggesting that being the person who creates experience for others can sometimes lead to feeling disconnected from experiences yourself. The narrator longs to step out of the role of performer and dance alongside everyone else rather than standing on the sidelines.

11. Paint by Numbers

Favorite lyric: “Holding the weight of the American children whose hearts you break.”

I really love this song because it’s one of the few songs in the album that has a low tempo. It also hits hard for me because he references his old band One Direction in the line “kids with water guns.” There is no interaction between the band members in the media so I’m thankful for any mention of their 1D days. To me, this song’s tempo and melody echo the raw, intimate feel of his debut album. The sense of familiarity helps me connect with the song and easily makes it in my top five favorites in the album.  The song addresses the struggles of being a celebrity, focusing on being “stuck” with an image imposed by the public, mentioning “holding the weight of the American children whose hearts you break”. Styles speaks of “learning to paint by numbers”, meaning doing what society and his fans wish. He’s constructed to stay neat and within the lines, when realistically, nobody is like that, and just because someone is in the public eye does not mean they should be held to the unrealistic standards many celebrities are.

I think this is a very necessary song for Harry to have written and experienced in his journey as a songwriter and also to be put into this album in specific. And although I do love the song and wouldn’t change a thing, it just doesn’t connect to me enough to be obsessed with it. Not to say others can’t interpret it differently and are able to find meaning in a different way. I just personally couldn’t. 

12. Carla’s Song

Favorite lyric: “It’s all waiting there for you.”

Weirdly, this song sounds like Harry’s return to music and his fans. The repetition of “I know what you like” and “it’s all waiting there for you” seems to portray a sense of encouragement, almost as if the singer is telling the reader to wake up and experience the world around them through the things that give them joy. This song is the epitome of what Harry Styles stands for. It’s clear through his music, fandom and stage/societal presence. When the album was released he posted on his story saying “it’s all waiting there for you”, both meaning the work is finished and out for everyone to consume and a metaphor for how they should view/live their lives. It’s the perfect conclusion for the album. You can almost look at it as a story: he faces struggles, love, mistakes, etc. all throughout the album, finally getting to a point where he truly knows how to find joy in this world, even if he doesn’t have everything figured out. Sometimes songs with too much repetition get kind of boring to me, but I love the overlaid tracks in the last half of the song that just make the repetition so much more. 

It was incredibly difficult not to give all these songs 5 stars. I had to look at the album from the eyes of a non-dedicated-crazed fangirl. So through taking off my rose-tinted glasses, I was able to fairly rate the album a four out of five stars.

This rating reflects my genuine love for this album and the tracks that specifically resonated the most with me. It’s like he’s inviting you to get on the dance floor and reflect simultaneously. While there are moments that may not hit as hard for everyone, the overall experience is undeniably electric.