Every Single Album - ‘Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.’ | Every Single Album: Harry Styles

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

Today, Nora and Nathan break down the long awaited album return of Harry Styles- ‘Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.’ They decide whether there is a “Watermelon Sugar” on the album, and they predict which songs will be the hits of the summer. They choose their favorite lyrics from the album and share what each song reminded them of before finally revealing their grade. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producers: Olivia Crerie and Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's be honest, we all love finding out things that are none of our business. If you're like us, the kind of people who, when you're at a party, you're in the corner talking to somebody about their messy divorce or how they're talking to their ex again, then this show is for you. Welcome to None of My Business. I'm Sophia Benoit, a sex and relationships writer and professional nosy person. And I'm Kelsey June Jensen, co-host, comedian, and Sophia's best friend. And each week on Nautomy Business, we'll bring you a person's most intimate stories. And to keep them anonymous, we'll have a guest on to role play as the person and tell you their business. We're talking about their exes and ex, hookups and breakups and everything that you're not supposed to talk about, but that we all want to hear. None of my business comes out every Monday on the Ringer Podcast Network.

Find us on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Prenciotti. And as always, I am joined by my friend Nathan Hubbard for a very special episode on a Saturday morning as we record this. Because kiss all the time, period. Disco, comma, occasionally by Mr. Harry Styles. aka cat dough is upon us. Does it bother you that there's no punctuation?

There are two uses of punctuation in this album title, but none at the end. And then he just lets it go at the end. I'm actually so glad that this is the first thing that we're discussing. Does it bother me? I don't know if it bothers me, but it captivates me immensely. I'm thinking about it nearly all the time. Kiss all the time, period. Disco, comma, occasionally what?

what are we supposed to take from that? Is it intentional? Is it, you know, we disco occasionally out into the void and we'll never have these answers. We'll never have like a clean statement of meaning from Mr. Stagland. These are the questions that keep me up at night. How do you feel about it? This is the second time that a major European male act at the peak of their powers has like effectively disappeared into a Berlin disco and come.

out with a pretty significant pivot. You two made the Joshua Tree, one album of the year. They made Rattling Hum, but it was kind of like half of an album. They almost break up. They go hang out in Berlin discos, and they come back and they deliver Octung Baby. And 35 years later, Harry's made Harry's house, went out, got worshiped on tour, been touching grass in Italy, and hitting the German discos. and we got Kiss all the time period, disco, comma, occasionally, no punctuation.

Are you in for calling it cat dough? Yeah, let's call it cat dough. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Wanted to get on the same page about that. Yeah, I mean, so like those are reference points that are more meaningful to you than to me. Was that really front and center for you when you consumed this? What was front and center for me was that this is a man who very close, clearly, I think, was haunted by the ghosts and the imposter syndrome of winning album of the

year. And who was, is a seeker as a human being. Yeah. And who, to quote you to quote you to, very clearly, still has not found what he's looking for. And I think in that context, that's how I sort of absorbed this album, was just interesting. interested to see how a human being, the subject of so much hero worship since he was 16 years old, who lives in this space, I think, where, and this is reflected in the lyrics, like it feels like he will always have to keep the world at arm's length, because his whole life is this tension between how he actually feels and behaves and how the world wants him to feel and behave. And I think he still struggles to reconcile those two things.

But look, only Adele has managed to follow up an album of the year win with another one on her next album since Sinatra in 66 and 67, right? Adele had 21 and then followed it up with 25. CV Wonder had an album in between intervisions and songs in the key of life. Paul Simon had two, and we'll talk about Paul Simon today, I bet, had two between still crazy after all these years in Graceland. So this is a hard thing to do. And I think his place in history and the weight of those expectations and the bestowing of a credibility that by the way, he and his management team have so expertly crafted in his

solo career to get that credibility. But that was very much bestowed as a crown on his head, I think in his own mind. I'm not sure we all declared Harry Stiles is the greatest of all time with it just because he won the Grammy. But I think that Crown had some weight to it. And so that's the prism through which I processed this album. Well, because it feels like a watershed moment in his career in the sense that I think we've known enough to have a sense of those things that you're talking about in terms of how Harry feels about. and the expectations of fame and the experience of trying to keep parts of your life to yourself, but also have an authentic relationship with the crowd and the fans.

But this does feel like the first time to me that he is, that like Harry Styles is writing about being Harry Styles in the way that like when we talk about Taylor, Taylor Swift has been writing about being capital T, capital S Taylor Swift for decades. Yeah. And Harry kind of sneaky hasn't. He writes these broad songs about togetherness and love and community, which I think feel true to him in a vibes-based way, but are hard to glean anything really specific and tangible from. He's written a fair number of songs about, you know,

a specific relationship. And we have done the exercise, which he opens up by doing that of, okay, who is this, what little details are in there. But there's still, you know, it's, it's a love song or a relationship song. Yeah. He keeps us at arm's length. It's hard to, he's like pierced the piece of paper with a bunch of little pinpricks. So we can get a little bit of an image of him, but we don't get it all.

But we see it through only those little holes. I think this is an interesting new text for him because he, He is writing, often it sounds like he's writing to himself and he's writing from the perspective of who he is and who he feels like he is. And so often that is about maintaining that privacy and the push and pull of that, that it's still not like you're truly getting to the innermost, innermost layers. But it does feel like something that I've never heard him do before is right so frankly

about the experience of his life in the ways that it is like very few other people's. And that was the thing that I was most struck by sort of conceptually or content-wise. I still feel like the writing, we've had this joke before. Like Harry Styles, is he that deep? And I think as a human being, he very clearly is. But I still feel that struggle in this album. Like, I don't, he remains very subdued lyrically against the backdrop of, from these last two albums anyway, what is delightfully chaotic and complex and unexpected musical canvases.

without sort of giving up the bag a little bit too much. I really enjoy this album. I think it's, I think it's pretty special. I don't know that it entirely beats the Harry Styles as a vibes merchant allegations. Right. Like he's so good at creating these things that are, they're mood boards and they present a set of aesthetic ideas.

It's like his Pinterest account. Right. No, he is the, he is the Pinterest pop star. and that can be really fun and he's really good at it. Sometimes I think that he, there are parts, especially on the first half of this album, where particularly because it was set up as not necessarily a dance record, but a record inspired by experiences had while dancing,

that I was surprised by how restrained it feels. and how how much it feels like he holds back, particularly in the first half. And sometimes that does feel like it is because he suffers under the pressure of having, like, quote unquote, good taste where it is so important to have these sort of cool Berlin boy signifiers that it gets in the way of raw feeling, which is something that I really associate with club music and dance music. and music that is supposed to let you let loose in that way. But I also think that particularly on the second half, I think that he really gets there.

And so I just, I think that you are really onto something that feels very present throughout this record to me, which is like, is the guy who said the movie feels like a movie? Like, how much does that penetrate? And I'm not like, Harry Styles is really smart and really like has clear,

ideas, but that always does feel like it's, that person is somewhere in there. And sometimes it's really charming. And then sometimes there are a few lines on this that are the movie feels like a movie to me. Yes. There are. But this is what I want from our big male pop stars. This album is. It's like reflective of an artist who seems to be hellbent on not duplicating what he's done before and not repeating himself. Like it is a very intriguing album. There are layers to the production that I think you only discover on multiple listens. And they can be, you can hone your ear in on the middle layer of percussion or some of the

accents that are played through synths or nylon string guitars or other decorative aspects to this. little bit like the sports celebration videos where, you know, in a big moment, like a couple of those videos from the Dodgers World Series or like post Super Bowl celebration where you go and you, you can watch any one of 50 people in the frame and each of them is doing something different and it's interesting and collaboratively they made this like moment of elation. That's how I feel about the production. And I think Kid Harpoon gets like a next level of respect. for me for this as a result. Like it is nothing if not interesting.

I don't know that there is a watermelon sugar like smash of the summer on this album. And that may be the point because from start to finish, the hardest thing that I will do today is pick what we cut. I think there are some candidates. But I think as a journey through

yeah, from start to finish, it's hard and it works and you can put it on and just go. Which he has, I mean, credit where it's due, Harry and Kid Harpoon and those two together, this is not the only album that they've made together that you can say that about. I've been listening to Harry's house a lot and obviously, you know, people know that we feel very, very strongly and positively about that record. But it is amazing how, just how great of a lot. listen it is top to bottom and how little there is that takes you out of it. And I do think that this is functioning on that level as well. Let's hang on to the idea about whether or not

there is something that sort of even approaches the watermelon sugar type of song for the summer. Right. I do want to ask you one more question. I do want to ask you one more question. just about kind of when you listened, how did you recalibrate to what this was in reality versus what you were expecting? Did you hear more live and or acoustic sounding instruments on this than you were expecting to? I guess I did.

That's where I go to the production piece because there's like the French whole, that shows up. And the nylon string guitar breakdown in Ready, Steady Go, right? I hope Perry-Stiles never makes an album without a horn appearing somewhere. Yeah, like it shows up at the end of paint by numbers as the song just sort of like deconstructs almost like the colors running that he talks about in that song. The end of the song sort of runs across the lines and blubh, blurs out.

There was a lot of stuff on here that that's, Those are the little Easter eggs that are planted throughout the album. So was I surprised, I mean, I guess I'll always be surprised if we don't get an acoustic ballad-y thing from Harry Styles. Because it feels like even last night, he played dinner party, right? Yeah. Or dining room table. Yeah. That feels right to me.

I think I had gotten hung up on the where in the club of it all. and as I started listening through, you do hear those piano trills and the horns come in and he has an orchestra at certain points and there are some really, really cool moments with strings and it does,

it made me think about sort of like what are the foundational pieces of Harry Styles as an artist? And I do think that he and Kid Harpoon will always come back to that and it stands out even more in the context of something that is all,

leaning on these more electronic ways of making music. This is not a dance record. It's not. It really isn't. It actually is truth in advertising. It discos only occasionally. Correct. And there is some fun disco to be sure.

I'm not sure how much it's kissing. I think there's a lot of kissing. I think there's a whole lot of kissing throughout this. I think Harry Styles is a kissing bandit. But he has not a. abandoned the from the dining table stuff. I think there's a lot of like ruminating on your place in the world. Harry Styles, I mean.

He's kissing. He's kissing. Okay. Well, we can debate that further, but I think we both agree that that he is discgoing only occasionally, which he did not lie. You brought up the idea that there isn't a watermelon sugar on this album. I think that is correct. But I do wonder if there are.

one or two songs that serve as a reasonable approximation that get, say, 65% of the way there. Oh, but that's not very far. It's not very far, but... That's a D grade for Song of the Summer. I don't think there is a song of the summer on this album. But I think the question is, if we think in terms not necessarily of the quote unquote biggest hit from this album. Right. But the songs that have a chance to rise up a little bit out of the album as a

whole and get heard by people who are not just going to press play at the beginning of this and go all the way through. Yeah. Which ones are those? I think there are four. Okay. Aperture is obviously one. They chose that.

It's out in the world. I don't think that that took over the universe. I think people like it. Yep. It also, there's some folks who didn't adore it. American Girls is obviously the next one. The video is interesting and we should talk about it. Definitely.

I will never get over the fact that there's a counting crow's Cheryl Crow song called American Girls, which is a really great song, but it was put out around the time when auto tune plugins for Pro Tools were really becoming a thing. and you can hear that they're auto-tuning both Adam Duritz and one of the great voices of her generation, Cheryl Crow,

and it drives me fucking nuts. What I can't tell is, is the hook big enough on American girls to make it the song of the summer? I think the answer to that is no for what it's worth. I don't mind that song. I don't mind that song.

There's actually a lot of it that now that I've sort of taken in the whole album, I like. The first time that I've, listened to it, the way that I felt was, why is there a second aperture at the top of this album? Why are there two scene setters? Yeah. There is a hook, but I sort of felt like this song was as close to a One Direction song as

there is on the album because of the singable American Girls piece. Did you watch the video? Yes. So that video is why I'm afraid of straws. Will you elaborate on that in case anybody hasn't seen it? Well, he is constantly being passed a beverage with a straw. And as the real stunt double does the hard work. And he's like the elite who doesn't do the work.

And that's kind of what a straw is. It's like it's a way out of doing the hard work. Of sipping? It's just mouth trash that is. in the way of what you're actually supposed to be doing. It's an elite way to drink. Because it doesn't mess up your lip glass? Well, so I don't really have that perspective on it.

For me, you know, because it's something that people do when they want to save their teeth. I feel, save their teeth. I feel like. It's like if you drink iced coffee out of a straw, the coffee makes less contact with your teeth. so it's less. It's still in your mouth.

Yeah, but it, you know, it goes down the gullet without making quite as much contact. Why don't we have one of those things for mashed potatoes or other bits of, if that's the point. You want to drink mashed potatoes through a straw? Do you want to be on a feeding tube

like you're in the Matrix? Anyway, in this video, it's very clear that the constant presence of the straw is an indication of how dainty and, you know, above all of the hard, like how white collar versus blue collar, right? There are those sort of juxtapositions of imagery and constantly, you know, as if he's working hard and needing to drink out of the straw. It's just ridiculous.

Anyway, it's why I hate straws. The whole video, I actually really enjoyed the video, but the straw parts, they gave me the willies. What is that song about to you? I don't know. I mean, I think it is about, I think it actually seems to me to be about he's got a bunch of friends who are all getting married and there's a loneliness. It's kind of like I wondered if it was sort of about the Peter Pan syndrome almost of being a touring pop star where he has these fans who feel like they've grown up with him and like have this consistency with which they've developed the relationship. and then he feels like all the real relationships in his life only exist in these little stages and segments. But then I was trying to figure out if that's what it is, then if what he's saying is that all of his friends are settling down with American girls.

Like he brings up the state of like Anglo-U.S. relations, according to Harry Stiles, is something that I have like tried to make sense of. in the lyrics throughout the record. And I can't quite figure it out because it would suggest from that that to him, American girls represents the kind of like the more stable

version of life and being able to settle down. And then in tasteback, there's a lot of references to a woman being in Europe and being European and it's a little bit more of like a booty call thing. Must be lonely.

So like... He's been in... He's been in Italy for... Right. I just can't quite feel where... Figure out where he is on this. Well, and like even last night, I mean, there's the Leave America inside joke

with the fan base from as it was... Right. Where everybody screams leave America as loudly as possible. And last night he did it again. So you're right. His view on Anglo... This is not California girls. like this is not celebrating the beauty of women in America.

It doesn't sound like it is at first, and then it kind of feels like it actually might be. But I can't like this is where, this is one of those, the movie feels like a movie to me. I'm not necessarily upset about it, but I am like, Harry, I don't know what you're saying, man.

I mean, her sweet eyes, your temptations, don't deny her frustrations, just spend your life with those American girls. he's a kissing bandit. I'm sorry. But isn't this kind of about how he doesn't want to be a kissing bandit? Like, don't you hear this as like a longing for something a little bit more stable than being a kissing bandit? Yeah.

There aren't a lot of words about longing in this. I think there are some words about longing elsewhere in the album. Okay, so you don't feel like he is envious of his friends in this song? I do. I do. But I don't, I've seen it in stages all over the world. My friends are in love with American girls. I've known you for ages.

It's all that I've heard. My friends are in love with American girls. Okay. What else? Well, there's not much else in this song. Those are basically the words. Harry is a bit of a mystery. So we get these little vignettes, right?

The little vignettes, the little pinpricks through the index card. like we're looking at, you know, the lunar eclipse or the solar eclipse indirectly. And it feels like so much of our interaction with him and what he really feels is indirect. And I don't blame a 32-year-old man who's been famous for 16 years being incredibly guarded about who he is while he himself is trying still to figure that out. and has he matured? Yes. Has he discovered and gotten completely in touch with who he is? No.

Is he a thinker? Sure. Is he a sort of abstract philosopher? Maybe. Does he know who Harry Stiles is? No. And I think it makes him incredibly uncomfortable because almost every other person on the planet

believes they do. Sure. That to me is the struggle of Harry Styles. And that as a whole picture, when you have a whole album to kind of find the different ways that you could come up with a thesis about that is really engaging to me. On this one song, there is just a slipperiness to it. And I like the song. I agree with you that it does have that little hook and that's cool. I just, I was surprised that this was the second single.

Well, I'm interested to hear what you think. are the other songs that you would have gone with. For me, to finish the thought on what I think the four are, to me, it's pop and dance no more. Yeah. I'm pretty surprised that they didn't go with either of those two. Because, and I think they must be holding back one of those two for Song or the Summer. Like, Dance No More feels pretty big to me.

It's silly and it's free, but holy shit, is it fun? It's really, really fun. And I think pop is really, really fun, too. And I will say that this is purely anecdotal, and I'm sure that it is my algorithm plays a part in this as much as what they're trying to do. And I don't really know how this stuff works, but just my own personal experience,

when I finish the album and it starts playing something else, my Spotify really wants to play pop. It really wants to go. Carla's song ends, and then it really wants me to hear pop again. Yeah. I mean, it is a pretty big chorus. And I have to say, the synths in the background and the chord progressions give pretty strong Kanye's stronger vibes. I mean, great song.

It's great song. It's really undeniable. But this is super fun. I think the chatter online about this, and this is the funniest, you know, Easter egging thing is like, what is this actually about? Like, he can't help but feed the Larry's

every now and then. Yep. And Pop does that. It's nice to mix two flavors. It's nice to mix two flavors. Is that about his current relationship or most recent situation? Is that about gay sex?

is that about an org? Like anybody can paste what they want onto this, which is why it should be a single. Yeah. Because it's pretty universal and it's super fun. So that stretch to me, coming up roses, pop, dance no more, is the knockout punch of the album.

Well, and I agree. I would start that one song earlier than that, but that to me is absolutely the knockout stretch of the album. Coming up roses for what it's worth, if you listen to, if you look at the streaming numbers so far and obviously it is very early days, the number of plays on all of these songs pretty much just mirrors the track list.

With the exception, there is a bump for coming up roses. Of course there is. People love the Harry ballad. You're either all in or you're all out on this song. It is magic. And it's C minor F major, B flat major, E flat major, waltz. nothing new, but the strings are powerful. It's kind of

it's kind of reminiscent of a lot of other hairy songs, but the vocal is forward. The simplicity in the song is sort of masked a bit by the just gorgeous string arrangement. And it like, I don't know, the way it holds that step below at the end and then resolves, the whole thing is just, you think maybe he's going to end it on that sort of dark minor chord. Yeah, like ominous note and then it resolves. And then it resolves beautifully. Like, it's, and it's part of, like, I've seen some chatter where people like, oh, why are these ballads on the album?

But that's exactly it. It's, this whole album keeps you on your toes. you cannot, it pivots constantly. It may not have the hook that floors you, but man, you are never bored. Well, and it also is, it is a Harry Styles album. Like, it's funny because there's so much lyrically that does seem to be preoccupied with searching for meaning

and who does he feel like he is and who does he feel like he's expected to be and how are those two things in tension with each other. Yeah. As an artist, like as a person who puts out a product, which is these albums. Yeah. Harry knows how to make a Harry Styles album, even when he's doing a pivot like this. Because there is always a fuckboy ass ballad.

Yeah. And even if we're spending a lot of time at least thinking about the club, if not specifically at the club, he's still going to do it. Like he still, he, he, he. Well, he should because he's awesome at it. Like he is, and it's real, no, I think it's really, really impressive. Sinatra-esque with his voice. And it is nice to hear it further forward in the mix a couple of times because there are,

like, they do some cool stuff with how he sounds and how he's singing and how it's, it's produced and presented. But it is nice to have a couple of moments where you hear him singing very clearly. Yeah, this song feels like it, plays the role that Sherry does in fine line. Yeah. And then kind of, I mean, is it kind of the boyfriends? Yeah. Yeah. It, it, but it, this one stopped me in my tracks. And, and I think it is my, I don't know, I think it's my favorite on the album only because I know that I'm going to go

back to it because it's the one that I went back to multiple times on listening. I think Pop and Dan Someore are pretty close. Pop, dance no more coming up roses. You'll humor me on dance no more if we can talk about it for a second because it finally gives me a chance to talk about Peter Gabriel's so

which we will do again as you know when you leave. Okay, just keeping track. You've brought up you two and Peter Gabriel's so. So like this is really a preview episode for what's to come in Nathan takeover May. It is.

Don't unsubscribe from this podcast. We'll figure it out. Hang in there, everybody. It's going to be okay. No, there are a lot of wonderful little snippets of 80s stuff all over this record.

But this song, there is a very clear through line between this song to Peter Gabriel's song, big time. It's that 80th and the bass line. Tony Levin, like this great bass player played on that song,

he's one of the all times. But it's a fucking groove. And this song will crush live. It will absolutely crush live. And you could see it even last night on stage in Manchester. Well, you could see it last night on stage in Manchester. And this is a thought that I had when we were talking about, you know,

what has the potential to try to be a song of the summer. I think it's actually less about that and more about, what are the songs that are going to be really fun high energy moments for the tour and both of these songs that we're talking about pop and dance no more. Like you're already anticipating the moment in the set list when everybody gets to let loose and dance to those. And I think that for what he's doing,

like that is probably actually more important than are those songs that are going to be particularly listenable and therefore rack up X number of streams, Y amount of radio play. Like it doesn't feel like those are super high concerns, but I do think that being able to have the tour be a party is a big deal. And those the point. That works. It's the point, right?

He spoke about how he started to understand his place in the world when he went to the radio head concert and saw the way that people were interacting and the, you know, random strangers like random moments of empathy towards one another and all of the things that happened in a crowd. He got to actually be in the crowd, probably not totally anonymously, but he was there and be like, oh, right, my job is to facilitate this for others. And that seemed to be a way for him to reconcile his place in the world because it is about him being in service of others. And I think that feels good instead of the, I'm just mopping up adulation and collecting tons of money from these people in front of me, which feels greedy. There's a way for him

to position himself as more saintly than devilish by sort of thinking of it as being in service of others. What do you think about season two weight loss? Well, it sounds like you love it. So I'm going to let you go. I mean, it's obviously one of the most, is it really? It's my favorite song. It was, it's my favorite song right now as we're talking. It was my favorite song the first time I listened to the album. I was enjoying myself through the waiting game, which is the song that comes before it. But I was like, the first time I listened to this, I was driving.

I'm just like, oh, I'll turn this on. I'll put Harry Styles on in the car. And I'm going along and I'm like, okay, this is, yeah, this is good. This is cool. There's some cool moments with this, you know, piano trill here. like, oh, interesting ideas, ready, steady go does some cool stuff. I was a little bit like, where's level two? Like, when are we kicking into a different gear?

And for me, when this song comes on, it is the beginning of the second half of the album. And not everything, I think there are some high moments that come before, but most things kick up a notch to me at this point. There's a very cool story. Kid Harpoon did an interview with the New York Times, where he talked just a lot about, like, experiences that he's had as a producer and as a musician that seemed to kind of mirror at a smaller scale, but like mirror some of what Harry seems to be preoccupied by right now in terms of. like once you've kind of gotten to the top, where do you go from there? And do you feel a certain type of burnout from focusing on like maintaining that instead of following more authentic creative impulses and sort of how, you know, he started going to therapy and found ways back to that.

And one manifestation of that is just all these crazy synths that he bought. Like there's a very funny quote where he's like, well, I got to a point in my career where people around me started buying stocks and I didn't know what to do. So I just bought all these cents. That's like the Jack Antonoff problem. Yeah, but he has a little bit more restraint with how many he uses at one individual time. But anyway, there's just a lot of very charming anecdotes about how he's just messed around with these things and had fun having them in his house in his studio. And he had made a piece. And again, this is where the like guy who goes to Berlin vibes do kind of take over.

But he'd made this piece for a friend of his who's also a friend of Harry's, the sculptor Nikolai Haas. So like, again, we've got kid Harpoon in his studio messing around with these modular synths to make a birthday present for this cool sculptor. And it's those kind of funky sounds that you hear at the beginning. And he thought that it was, you know, one, it was a gift for somebody, but also that it was too weird to be a song. But he played it for Harry.

And he started singing over it and was like, no, I think that this would work. And I do think that, like, first of all, I just think that that's a very charming story. But it does, like this, this song introduced a new texture. to the entire album for me. Like, it just made me sit up a little bit. And I- You heard the cheekbones on this song. Totally.

And I think that it, like, it feels like it's supposed to be more propulsive than something that grabs you with individual hooks. But I still do find a lot of the melodic elements, incredibly catchy. It just feels like, and alive in spite of the fact that if this is one that like again if you really start digging into the lyrics it's pretty sad like there's it's pretty bogged down by a feeling of

having all of these accomplishments and basically coming to the conclusion that it's pretty empty which is not the type of tonal it's not something that tonally you expect from harry styles like Harry Styles is a pretty upbeat, optimistic figure. He described this as like the mission statement for the album and that this was him coming back as like a stronger version of myself. I mean, I do think that musically I buy that. Like that I experience the album that way. Yeah.

I think that is a little bit of a window into what he and his main collaborator are spending a lot of time thinking about. out right now, which is kind of this, like, is this all there is idea? Yeah. That maybe signals something about why he would feel like that's the Rosetta Stone to all of this. But like I do particularly musically just feel like this is a moment where it lifts off. I also really like-

There's nothing about Harry's house on that, right? And that to me was part of it because I don't think it's inconsistent with the way that I look at this album, which is that the two of them were very, very. very, very concerned about following up the album of the year and not repeating themselves. And you don't listen to this record, to this song and go, oh, this is Harry's House 2.0. You go, wow, they really did something different. They really did something different, but it also, like, even relative to what, it just has energy. And I think that, you know, the songs that I agree with you that it's hard to figure out what you would cut.

but I would say that the hardest, this is a short stretch, but the only stretch of this album where I have kind of a hard time is taste back in the waiting game. Like I feel a little bogged down by those songs. I got stuck in the part on Waiting Game that feels like it borrows straight out of Pixies Where's My Mind? That little high whale, I just get drawn back to that song every time I listen to Waiting Game.

Sure. I thought that maybe I would shoot one waiting game, but the chords in the second verse are different. It kind of devolves through the course of the song from something ordinary and familiar into something extraordinary and unfamiliar. I also like, there are a couple lines on Waiting Game that I actually think are really strong.

I think write a ballad with the details while skimming off the top is a very interesting lyric for Harry Styles to kind of admit that, like, he doesn't he likes to play things close to the vest and he shares in a way that's a little bit strategic it's definitely an example where he's writing kind of to himself and that's really cool it just feels a little dull like if it this is the part of the album where I feel like he is bogged down by being by being like mr. cool Pinterest board guy like where everything has to be in such good taste

that it gets in the way of it having any real pathos. Well, did you think that taste back was about anything other than like a booty call or like and when what's he really asking? Like I gotta be honest, one of my notes on this song is literally unclear. Like, yeah.

Was it like COVID era like got your taste back? Or was it like your taste for me? I, that's the got your taste for me is the closest that That would be my best guess. Yeah, like it seems to be a booty call song. It seems to be about reconnecting with someone who you don't have, you know, maybe a particularly deep relationship with, but an on and off relationship with. And that's great. You know, this is, this is a kissing bandit song.

Yes, it is. And Ellie Rousel from, from Wolf Alice is singing on it. And that's very fun. and I'm happy for them. But it just, do you experience any of what I'm talking about where like, it kind of begs for this moment of letting go

that never comes? Yeah, I don't, I don't disagree with you. I felt a little the same way through Ready, Steady Go and Are You Listening yet? Like, I wanted those to be transcendent. I like them. Like, I thought,

Like, he played ready, steady go pretty hard last night. Like, he was going at it. Like, it starts with that sort of almost like white stripe seven nation army baseline. But then you've got that nylon string guitar breakdown. So I'm interested. There isn't anything melodically about that song that captures me. And that was where I started to go, okay, right, this is going to be a dance record. And it's about the vibes.

And then are you listening yet? felt like, I don't know, like the vocal pattern has that every teardrop is a waterfall, cold play, like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Dda, right? It runs into like, in excess, need you tonight kind of thing, and they had a baby on this song or something.

But the back outro, the back outro of that song steals, I think they literally lifted the noise from, oh, and this gives me more 80s, from police's synchronicity too. Like there's like a that then goes into that outro and by the end of it you go okay this is the most LCD sound system

song on the record but it does seem to lift little bits I was into it I just didn't feel like wow I'm gonna definitely go back to that and so I'm with you by the time you round the corner right? Yeah by the time you round the corner

to weight loss you're like huh and then it shifts into gear right there and then coming up roses shifts tonally but is really strong then pop dance no more you're just like absolutely having a blast yeah then you're paid by numbers i'm interested to get your thoughts on this

because for me there's some people who are like oh the ballads kind of pull you out of this album and i'm like by the time you've gone through pop and dance no more it's like paint by numbers is like sitting in the lobby of the club or the place where you're leaving and like your friend is in the bathroom and you're just like catching your breath. And so Paint by Numbers is this sort of welcome. It starts with some landslide sounding chords

and then it's off into its own thing. I don't love the song, but I like the intrigue and the speculation around it. How do you feel about Paint by Numbers? Yeah, I think some of the, I mean, I don't, I'm sure I could look this up. I haven't, but some of this album was recorded at Abbey Road. and it just feels like this one must have been.

I mean, it's two less than two and a half minutes. Yeah. Is this about Olivia Wild? So I don't know. And I think you're talking about the line where he says, holding the weight of the American children whose hearts you break. For sure. Was it a tragedy when you told her you're not even 33,

as if to say like, I've got more to explore in the world and I'm not even 33 and like I'm not ready to be totally settled down is the vibe. I can see that. And a song can be about multiple things at once, right? There are other passages here

where he talks about they put an image in your head and now you're stuck with it. It's a little bit complicated when they put an image in your head of night. That to me felt so much about his relationship with his audience. Hmm. And because the thread of him still coming to terms with who he became to people

when he was very young in a boy band. Yeah. But that's the depth that I wanted from American girls. Right. Right. I sort of wonder if this isn't. Like we're really drawing these particular distinctions about who's American and who's not. And that, that I was very fascinated by that and couldn't totally come up with a,

something that felt consistently true about the way that he's using those descriptions. But so like emotionally, this didn't, emotionally to me, this felt like a song about Harry vis-a-vis his audience, not Harry vis-a-vis a romantic partner or a former romantic partner. But I, I, I agree that. the best piece of, if you want to say that it's an Olivia Wildeaster egg, was it a tragedy when you told her I'm not even 33? Oh, sure. That really feels like it points there.

This song broke my heart for him a little bit, just because I think it's hard. I mean, I know this sounds silly, but like, it's a bit of the Taylor Swift conundrum. Like, it's impossible for him to have a normal relationship with someone. like every person that he meets already knows who he is as a celebrity and probably thinks they know who he is as a human being and it's just a very difficult launching off point to build a relationship I think about like you know John Mayer is almost 50 years old and has not been able to settle down and now maybe that's because he's restless and all those things but like Harry Harry's been famous since he's 16 years old and he's

you know, he's 32 and he's got plenty of life in front of him and there's all kinds of it. But I think it is it is just inherently hard for him to be in a normal relationship. I don't think he will ever know what that is. Right. And Taylor being able to, as she called it in quotes, go athlete. Right. Was a way for her to actually find somebody who understood what her world was like, but in a different vertical that she actually didn't.

understand and where she could take her intellectual curiosity and throw it into something new and learn and be able to kind of be a fan of somebody else, right? And for Harry, I mean, it's just, it is the curse of his existence is that it just seems very hard to be able to just be in something more than a situation ship because there is so much pre-existing false context that comes in to the first smooch that he ever has with any human being on the planet. I get those ideas from this for sure. You don't buy it. I honestly like, maybe this is wish you know,

because I really want it to be true. I think Harry seems okay. Like, I think that a lot of what it seems like he's... I think he is okay, but it's hard still. I think it's hard, but I also think that he hasn't been, like, I think a sense that you get from him less so in the album. but more so in the press that he's done is just a reminder of how consistently

and intensely he was working for a very long period of time and that after Harry's house and between Harry's house and this album he did really take a step back and like for someone who does seem like it is really important to him to live

something that at least bears resemblance to a normal grass touching life that he like went and did it. And, And that sort of feels like the jumping off point from which Harry could even, I'm, of course, just speculating and projecting, but like even try to have the right relationship for him. So in that sense, like, he hasn't really been at it for that long. Yeah.

So I think that they're, I think he's going to be okay. And he talks, he talks a lot about how that experience saying yes to things. Yeah. that he hadn't before allowed him to meet new people and make new friends and just sort of trusting that the universe is going to guide him in the right way by doing things and showing up in different places and I get running marathons. And so that feels to me to be an intentional choice from him to put himself out as a normal person into situations in which, yeah, probably to break the ice, it's awkward because

holy fuck, that's Harry Stiles, but it seems like he's made these friends, Katie, whoever that is, Carla, on and on, where he's experiencing life by putting himself out there in spite of his celebrity. Yeah. Well, and he just, I don't know. He, he, to me, passes this Mel Test. When he's, when he's doing interviews, when he's in public, when he's just sort of like talking about his life, there's something about it where, and maybe it's all a facade and he's just incredible. at it, but I watch that person and I go, I buy this. Like, I think that you are telling, there may be moments of strategy of what you're sharing and what you're not, but like, I think that I don't think that this is a performance. I think that Harry Styles to the full extent of what is reasonable for someone as public a figure as he is, is being himself in public, which like, that as a North Star makes me think that like he's okay.

Well, Zane didn't really ask him a question about Liam, which I think was actually the brilliance of that Zane Lowe moment. He just said, well, what you're saying right now reminds me of Liam. And he just paused and looked at Harry and just gave him the floor. And Harry's response was very telling to that question or to that sort of invitation in that he put up for us that tension of what he was actually feeling and what the world wanted him to feel. Yeah. What he did say and what the world wanted him to say. And just when it felt like the emotion was sort of coming up through his throat, he stopped.

And he just said, it's sad. Which I'm chuckling only because the wall went up, right? Yeah. He wasn't going to cry on camera. He wasn't going to give you everything that was going on for him. and he gave you what was sort of a pithy, uninteresting final punctuation, if you will. But also true.

It is sad. Enormously true, but it was just that was, and he just sort of let it hang out there. There's so much more that he was feeling that he could say about it, right? But we had gotten to the border and the fence was there and he was not going to cross. Yeah, and it is a different,

mode of, you know, he is the most prominent male pop star of being, of navigating emotion as a man who is also famous and who is in the public eye. And I don't know. I think that there is a charm to watching someone who seems determined to take care of themselves. Yeah. And I think you get that from him. And I, I've, even if it means, that he doesn't always like give and give and give, I think that it's very appealing to see someone be in that space and navigate that space in a way where it seems like they are kind of hell bent on keeping their head on straight.

Yeah, he's one of the very few historical male celebrities who is just always effortlessly cool. Like I think we can draw a lot of parallels to him and Timberlake at the peak of his powers. but like Timberlake had constantly had moments of cringe. Yes. And some that, I mean, one need only see the like, you know, all denim outfits from the 90s, but like, or the 2000s and much less lots of things that have followed.

But Harry hasn't had like that anecdote from the Britney Spears memoir. Of course. Of course. Talking a genuine and saying faux shizzle. Exactly. So there's just are places where there's a, in hindsight, there was a lot of try-heart. from Timberlake, though he was in his sort of apex, like smoothest, coolest, like, and the music was legit,

and he's a real musician, right? But there's been a lot of conversation as Harry's come back. We've been making the point here for a while that even as we first talked about the possibility of a Harry record in 2026, you know, what we said is he sort of vacated, he didn't really, he vacated the scene, but he didn't vacate the throne. and that there were a number of people who tried to come at him, right, the role models of the world. Bunny maybe got pretty close in some way. But he is, like, he sort of has effortlessly pivoted musically from album to album.

And that, to me, is what separates him from almost any other male star that we have. Like, there have been tryhard moments from Ed Sheeran, the last album, for example, right? Like, now, in fairness, this is only Harry's fourth solo record. So he's got, you know, talk to me when he's, you know, in Taylor's position. Long Division asterisk. Yeah, when he's trying to do something like Taylor was with Last of the Show, yeah, with Showgirl. So I think, but so far. He's also given himself a more time.

He has. By design. Greatly to his benefit. Yeah, and our benefit. But he seems to be on the leading. edge of culture, not chasing it. And that rolls through his personality and the way that he presents himself. He just, he has that sort of effortlessly cool. It's a bit Clooney-esque, maybe. I don't know what it is. But I don't want to, I don't want to fuck up the point with the wrong comparison.

It is his superpower, though. And I'm with you. He is just always believable, even if he's not giving you access to his depth. It's always believable. And, that cascades through the music. I'm with him on this pivot. I believe it. It's interesting. It keeps me on the edge of my seat, even though he hasn't fully taught us

who he is as a 32-year-old man yet. Yeah, that's interesting. I feel a little differently about whether or not he is on the cutting edge of culture because I think that Harry Styles is someone who seems to get really excited about things. I would like to talk about running in a second. but where he finds these spaces and these things

that he gets really excited and passionate about, and he does kind of adopt them. And so the- Concede that he's not on the cutting edge, maybe, but it doesn't feel like he's trailing or chasing. Well, it seems like he is genuinely enjoying, and therefore it doesn't feel overwrought in terms of, you know,

vulturing a world that he's not a part of for his own raw material. I think that there are some, you know, I think you could say that, like, in a way, you could say that since COVID, there's been a fairly persistent run of pop albums that have leaned on disco influences. Dance, yeah. I think you could say that since Beyonce's Renaissance, especially a lot of the musical touchpoints that he's using here, have been in vogue. Charlie, do, uh, yeah. Yeah. Gaga.

So I like sometimes there are parts of this where I feel like he's trailing a little bit, but it, but it just, it doesn't feel like he's doing it because he wants to be part of a trend. It feels like he's doing it because he actually has experienced something and wants to share it in his own way. I love post Malone, but this is not. post Malone's country record. Yes.

You know what I mean? No, he's not, it doesn't feel like a costume. But that's what it felt like for on that record. Yeah, this doesn't feel like a costume. Yeah. I'm interested in your thoughts on Carla's song. Because that's the only song we haven't talked about

on this record and very clearly inspired by seeing a woman, it's a bit of a Plato's allegory of the cave, right? Yeah. It's like you don't know what you're looking at until you actually see it. And she sees or hears more acutely Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Trouble Water. And this song is ostensibly about her letting the light in, if you will, as he talks about an aperture to open the album, to close the album. He's watching somebody else sort of see light for the first time.

And it's a beautiful closer. I also think, and this is probably related to what I'm saying about. how he can trail some of those disco influences without it feeling like he's chasing a trend. Harry Styles loves music. Like, Harry Styles loves music. And you can tell that it is not because it has made him rich and famous. Like he really, this MFer loves songs. And that's a really winning quality.

And you get that from that. Like, you get how much it has meant to him to just sort of have these experiences and be in these spaces where he's surrounded by music that he's really. interested in. And that sentiment as the album closer, I think, is really, really nice. I think the piano in particular on the song, again, is like one of those moments where I thought that we were going to the club basement, but actually there's some more acoustic sounding pieces of this that are really beautiful. Go ahead. Yeah. Like in that in that second verse, here come the synths. Yeah. We're doing both.

We're doing both. Very much like it sounds very similar to me to the, the Cota section of Billy Elish's La Morda Mavie. It feels like heavy influence in that second verse, which I wanted this song to be transcendent. Well, it contains, I think, the single most inscrutable lyric on this entire album, which is, you've been a baby sleeping,

upon a candy bar? Yeah. You've been up upon a can't... What? Yeah. What are you talking about, dude? It's all been right there for you.

You just didn't know. You hadn't discovered what it's like to taste sugar. And suddenly, it was right in front of you. Would I suddenly understand this song? Is that what's going on here? Because I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. I think you suddenly think there was a baby chasing you

with a giant candy bar or a giant baby. chasing you. Yeah, of course, that would be my experience. It's just a bonkers line. But I love the idea of this song. I like it. I loved the idea of the song. I liked it. I loved the idea of the song and I wanted to just like have it just be a magical experience for me. And I thought it ended up just being okay. I, I, it, it wasn't as moving for me as some of the others. I'll say that. So, okay, your favorite. So you. like coming up roses you think that's the best song.

I do that's the one that move me the most but like and then I feel like Dance No More is your second favorite it's pop or dance no more if I have to go to a desert island

those are the three I'm taking for sure and I probably if I'm stuck on the island would let go of coming up roses because it would bum me out about my circumstances and I'd rather have pop or dance no more

where would you go after that if you were doing a ring thing wow I think I'm probably in this is where to me there's a little bit of like a grab bag in that you know post aperture 40% of the album like I can kind of rotate any of that stuff in or out and that that brings up an interesting question like how much are you going to revisit this I think that I will I think that I will revisit this album as an album

The album feels like an album In circumstances when I really want To listen to an album Yeah Like great road trip record Really great road trip record Great dinner party record Pretty dinner party record

Fuck yeah Totally great Like doing good late night hanging with friends like third martini glass of wine album, yeah well you know what they say

about martinis great I don't drink martinis I don't know you taught me that I also don't drink martinis but I still knew that great

for me doing chores at home album and then I think that I will put let's see I will put pop dance no more

and season two weight loss I think those will go on on playlist for me. I think those I will have in rotation as songs. I think that so ready, steady go and are you listening yet?

Those could go on workout playlists for me. One thing that was my P. Carey that is something that I really want to talk about here. Doing runners world or whatever interview we did. Doing runners world, but also like this album is for runners. There are so many of these, like I'm having all of these thoughts

as I listened to this album about how there are some moments of explosion and euphoria and release that I sort of thought we're going to be there that are fewer and further between than I was expecting. But you know what it is. It's a great album to run to. It's a pace car. It's a pace car. It's a pace car of an album.

This dude is so into running right now. Who could blame him? Meditation. Not me. Yeah, he's got his wired headphones running through the back country of, Italy preparing to... Harry Styles made his own marathon

playlist. Well, Sted Sarandos was the most ridiculous marathon name. It's so funny. It's peak Harry for me because it's like

such a thinly veiled like come on man. You could have chosen a name that wasn't clearly fake. Like you might as well just said Harry Styles. People were going to figure out Sted Sarandos.

I know, but I think he wanted to do it for the bit. Well, it worked. It worked. It was very. really funny. What do you think about next album? I think it's a really interesting

question. I think it's probably going to be a while because he's going to go do all of this touring. And what I love now is it's going to be different. Again, this is one of the best managed transition solo careers that you're ever going to see. And he's

going to do something different. He's not going to repeat himself. And I think maybe he's going to wait for culture to shift and then jump into that. Again, I don't think he's going to chase and trail. It's not going to feel like it's a year or too late, but it's going to be different.

So I am all in for the journey. I do sort of want, you know, we said this when we first heard Aperture. We weren't blown away by the song, but there's something so comforting about this guy's voice. Yes. It is Sinatra-esque in that way. And there are parts of this album where that voice is relegated to the background.

And that's okay because of the texture of a lot of these songs. It's intended to be about the vibes. I would love for HS5 to have, first of all, coming up roses is the only song in this record that he wrote by himself. So yes, Harry, lean into that. Lean into that. and something that gets back, not even back to,

that moves forward into melodic front hook. He just is a, I don't know, there's just something very soothing about listening to this guy sing. And I value and appreciate this record. I will go back to it in the ways that you and I talked about it. I don't know that it has a home run song

and, you know, steal my girl. I think he's, he's still got a steal-mic girl or two left in him. Oh, that's a great song. Yeah, it stood out to me how many of the more, quote-unquote, real instruments pop out of here in ways that feel really special.

And I think that there is something in this person who, no matter what he's making, and even when he is making an album that discos occasionally, he wants to be in a room or in a studio with a choir or a band or an orchestra. Yeah. And there's a lot of charm to that for me. I think between him and Kid Harpoon, they really know how to use that.

and how to weave it in with the sense and with all the things that they're doing in moments to his vocal, which like, I agree, that's not what I want from Harry Styles forevermore. But I do think that we will always hear him reflecting the experience of being in a room with other musicians playing kind of no matter what type of album he's making. and the fact that that was present on this album, which was marketed as something that came out of different types of spaces

where you hear different types of instruments, was instructive to me about kind of how he charts his course. Yeah. I mean, if he waits another four years to put out an album, he will be 36, which will be the age at which Taylor put out life of a showgirl for her 12th album. So my hope is that the way that he has decided to tour, which he has remarked in part, is to give him some more normalcy in his life and make the impact of touring less on him.

I hope that that in turn allows him to continue to make art and that maybe the next thing that we get won't be four years in the future and will be a little bit sooner, if only because I'm really interested in what he creates. And it's not just me being impatient, but it's also that at this stage in his life before he gets too deep into, you know, apart in his mid to late 30s until he's 40 years old. Like there just is a, people still make interesting art at that point. But like there is this phase of lots of great artists' life

where they are at their most. productive and prolific. And so I hope that the touring schedule will allow him to continue to make. Here's one more thing about the tour. We never talked about his performance at the Brits last week. What was your take? Is he going to dance on this tour? Is Harry Style is going to do like choreography? I don't know. He didn't really last night. Yeah. I mean, he did Harry stuff. Yeah. Right, which is a different thing. The running around and being feather boa man is a different category to me. I think he's going to do more Fred again, standing at the DJ console, like, will he run around from it? Yeah, but I think he's, that's what it seemed like from last night.

Well, DJs don't dance no more we've been told. I thought that it was, I didn't find that performance as off-putting as I think some people did. I just, again, like his schick works on me. I do think that Harry, you know, such a selling point of One Direction was this idea that they were this kind of new version of a boy band that didn't dance and they didn't have choreographed moves. They were just sort of these rambunctious boys who happened to be on stage together like kind of messing around with each other. At the boots. I think he was dancing more than. in the air. He did some head moves.

But he had he had some like kickball change moments that I don't think you normally see from Harry Stiles on stage. And you know what? Maybe that was just an experiment and he went to go do it. I agree with you that that the stuff that he did in Manchester last night looked a little bit more like what I was expecting him to do and a mode that I think he seems more comfortable. It's like he's going to be more Fred again than Fred Astaire. Yes. Yes. That's a really good way of putting it. Do you have a favorite lyric?

I signed up for, oh, what a gift it is to be noticed, but it's nothing to do with me. Oh, what a gift it is to be noticed, but it's nothing to do with me. I think he actually, by the time he put this out, probably doesn't even believe that, and that he now understands that there is this symbiotic relationship between him and the audience. that again he seems more comfortable with by framing it as being in service of those people and helping to facilitate these moments between strangers in a moment in time in which there's lots of conflict between strangers and that you know him being the the chef of harmony between people is a legacy he's comfortable with sure sure what you think so I had to I had and I know

that I said that I would be more inclined to cut this song than most of the others. But I do think that that write a ballad with the details while skimming off the top line from the way the game has really stuck in my head. The other one that we didn't talk about so much is from Are You Listening Yet, where he says, it's like you're taking up arms, but the message is wet. it sounds inviting but you don't believe in it yet. And that to me seemed like it was about this idea

that he is up on stage kind of taking people to this really optimistic version of church and that he has this internal struggle of whether he feels like it's true for him to embody that. And I that there's like word economy there. I think it's a really interesting idea.

I think it's one of the most revealing things that he shares. And for someone who typically doesn't share a lot to kind of admit that he's up there being a salesman some of the time, like feels there's something that feels kind of dangerous about saying that that I think is really like it just it's rattling around in my brain and I'll keep thinking about it. I wondered if it was like another sort of throwaway light touch sexual reference. Just because the message is wet. Yeah, well, I mean, it feels like this song is, again,

about unintimate sex. Yeah, I think it can be about a number of things, but I just think that he, like, I think that it has this idea of Harry kind of preaching to a choir, but himself feeling like maybe this is maybe there's like a falsehood here and I think you could also apply that to an intimate or unintimate relationship between two people but like it it I got a lot of these lyrics as like Harry talking to Harry and I did too I did too that's cool like that that that is a way that I don't I can't think of another song where he's written like that

And so I was, I'm, I'm, I'll keep mulling those. And for all of his talents, Harry Styles doesn't always write songs where I'm like, huh, like, what is? Right. Pour over that for days and days. Well, and that may be what the next album is. Like, as he continues on his journey as the seeker, and maybe he'll always be that. Like, he's just sort of like destined to be the monk on the hill or something. But he, he like dying like Luke Skywalker, just sort of like disappearing.

into the force as he meditates. But maybe what's... Yeah, maybe what's next will be something with a bit more lyrical intimacy. That's not a criticism. It's just... Yeah, I still think the thing for Harry is he's got to keep the world away

from him a bit while he figures out who he actually is because the rest of the world has already made that judgment. And that's a... Yeah. I don't know. Journey that he's on. I think his superpower is that he can

he can connect in a way that's real without sharing in a way that's necessarily holistic, I guess. Because he's an easy canvas for... Yeah, yeah. But that's a talent. And like I kind of don't want him to change that. I like that there's ambiguity to him.

Yeah. The mystery is the point. because it allows a broad swath of people to pour themselves and to project their own thoughts into the canvas. And that's why there's no punctuation at the end of the album title. That's the mystery. That's the place where you project. Disco occasionally.

And then what, Harry? And then what? He'll never tell us. How'd you grade this thing? I gave it an A-minus. Okay. And honestly, like, there were moments when I thought about giving it a B-plus. It's not like, this is a lowish A minus for me.

That's right. I landed B plus. Okay. Okay. I landed high B plus. It is. It is. I think this is all I could have wanted.

I'm not disappointed in this album in any way, shape, or form. I think it is different from Harry's house and that it doesn't have the ubiquitous earworm smash, which is which I miss from this and to me that's really the only thing that keeps it from getting into the A territory for someone who was wearing a lot of the weight of the responsibility of having an album of the year

trophy in his closet or whatever I think he has he has done admirably well here me too I can't wait to go to the tour I think it's going to be an absolute blast and I'm excited to hear these songs live And I think that a lot of this is designed with that as the, like, that's the chief product.

And it makes sense. And I think it's going to be great. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Princeati. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Olivia Creary for producing this episode. Thank you, as always, to Kai McMullen. And to you for listening, we will talk to you next week.