We Belong Together

Kathryn Akers

Local Music Journalist

Harry Styles has starved fans of new music for just over three years. Fans started to worry that this hiatus would turn into retirement. That was until January 22, 2026, when Harry released his new single, “Aperture,” which preluded a bigger project, Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally. Followers of Harry were elated at this news, especially because his last album, Harry’s House, was released in May 2022. After starving the world of his music for three-and-a-half years, Harry Styles finally set the table.

Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally. is the epitome of what the world needs right now: hope, realities of the human experience, and a little bit of dance. In a digital age that promotes disconnection, Styles reminds us of the cruciality of human connection and heavily promotes vulnerability. Not only is human connection a main theme throughout his new album, but Harry also names this album’s tour “Forever, Forever” to ensure listeners don’t miss his message.

Harry Styles’ fourth album is the best depiction of the human experience in musical form so far in 2026. Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally. encapsulates the whole spectrum of human emotion. Styles writes about the highest highs, the lowest lows, and the weird feelings in between. The album starts with “Aperture,” a dancy, playful beat. “‘Aperture’ felt like a perfect start to me, because it was about the moment of realizing, like, no, I was in the wrong for something,” Styles quotes in an interview with Zane Lowe. Towards the end of the album, “Paint By Numbers” reflects the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. Popular speculation suggests this song is a tribute to Harry’s close friend and ex-bandmate, Liam Payne. The song has a slow tempo and is considered the most emotional track on the album. From “Aperture” to “Paint By Numbers,” Styles very purposely chose which tracks to include on this record and the order to place them in to reflect his main theme of the vast expanse of human emotion.

Preempting his fourth album’s release, Harry Styles went on Brittany Broski’s Royal Court podcast. While this interview doesn’t solely cover Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally, Broski touches on quite a bit of the new album, even featuring Styles giving Broski a first listen to an unreleased track. In this interview, Harry Styles sports a charm and humor that he hasn’t shown to the public since his time in One Direction. It was very refreshing to see a boyish, almost ornery, side that Styles hasn’t shown in years. Now that Styles is a huge pop star and not solely a teenager in a boy band, it’s a breath of fresh air to see that Harry is still, at his core, the same person. This further pushes the agenda that Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally. is all about the human experience. Styles tells Broski that at the beginning of his solo career, “[He] was scared to get [music] wrong,” and that led to him creating less personal music. Now that Harry is four albums into his solo career, he feels like he is writing more personal music, which lends itself to more accurately reflecting the raw human experience.

Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally. is the most honest and rawest album Harry Styles has released to date. This release was a daring, probably terrifying, move because the world is in a highly disconnected state, and Styles’ album promotes connection. The way that Harry is promoting his album is very empowering and promotes human connection. From naming his tour “Together, Together” to repeating the lyrics “we belong together” twelve times on the album’s lead single, “Aperture,” Harry Styles is stitching the world back together.