Steve Kornacki explains his unexpected Harry Styles collab
Steve Kornacki shares how his unexpected Harry Styles project came together during the singer’s NYC tour residency announcement.
It was evident from the first strains of “Aperture” that Harry Styles’ new album would not be the same as it was.
Where his Grammy-winning “Harry’s House” danced with taut melodies, inescapable hooks and blasts of brass (we still love you, “Music for a Sushi Restaurant”), Styles’ fourth solo album, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally,” is as quirky and brow-furrowing as its title.
That isn’t a criticism, just the acknowledgement that Styles’ first release in four years, out March 6, takes a hard turn into electronic music meshed with Dark Wave ‘80s influences.
Breezy pop, this is not. But it is a showcase for an artist unafraid to stretch and plunge into the deep end.
The thumping “Aperture” arrived as a slow-burn song that already sounded like a remix, yet its unconventionality didn’t prevent it from racing to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in February (along with the Global 200, Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales chart).
Styles, 32, crafted the album’s dozen tracks with trusted producer Kid Harpoon, the pair gleefully experimenting with roiling synths and taking cues from artists such as British DJ/producer Jamie xx (who will join Styles at his Madison Square Garden shows this summer).
The titles to many songs – “Season 2 Weight Loss,” “Ready, Steady, Go!” and “Taste Back” among them – aren’t better clarified after listening to lyrics that require an archeologist to expose. When Styles tosses out lines like “But you call Leon/you call it only in my head” on the Eurotrash disco banger “Ready, Steady, Go!” and leads the call and response coda “Gotta get your feet wet/Respect!/Respect your mother!” on the funky “Dance No More,” the message seems to be, don’t worry about understanding it, just feel it.
That said, fans will likely scour the internet for clues about the subject of album closer “Carla’s Song,” which is driven by bright synths and throbbing bass that escalates into rattlesnake shakes as Styles intones “It’s all waiting there for you.” Likewise the slow grooving, piano pulsing “American Girls,” which finds Styles skipping through a singsong chorus of “I’ve known you for ages/it’s all that I’ve heard/my friends are in love with American Girls.”
Throughout the album, Styles admirably dedicates himself to progressing, even if it doesn’t mean gift wrapped radio fodder. But no doubt these EDM-imbued tracks will land with a wallop when performed live.
Here are some of the standout tracks on “KATTDO.”
‘Are You Listening Yet?’
Styles speak-sings over cascading keyboards in his most verbose song on the album, which is also his most musically stimulating. A clattering chorus of “Now you’re all out of choices/are you listening yet?” eventually takes flight. But then electric guitar swoops in, the song detours into a drum-heavy break and somehow it all sounds cohesive.
‘Taste Back’
It’s a very ‘80s moment, with the industrial synth-pop of Depeche Mode or Soft Cell clear influences as Styles sings over a sweet, mellifluous chorus, “Must be lonely in Paris if you talk like that … Did you get your taste back?/Or do you just need a little love?” Styles works out his questioning in real time, deciding, that yes, “you just need a little love.”
‘Coming Up Roses’
The string-infused ballad is one of Styles’ most openhearted songs, and also contains the magical lyric, “Just for tonight, let’s go hangover chasing.” The swoony strings coat the song with a lush, old-fashioned feel. But what makes the eighth track on “KATTO” so intriguing is that its softness comes out of left field, like “Yesterday” popping up between “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” on the Beatles’ “Help!” album.
‘Pop’
If there is anything resembling the, well, pop of Styles’ past, this is it. Except this time he threads some repetitious techno into the mix. You can hear Styles unraveling as the song unfurls, but there is no denying the grip of the chorus, “Am I in over my head?/This could go anywhere/I do it and do it again/it’s meant to be pop,” the emphasis placed on the title word. “It’s nice to mix two flavors together,” Styles sings, once again offering mystifying lyrics that may make sense only to him. And once again reminding that it’s OK to feel more than think.
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