It’s become a common observation in conversations about current music: where did the men in pop go? Contrarians might argue that over the last few years we’ve had Benson Boone’s backflipping, Alex Warren’s aggressive ordinariness and, on the alternative side, Sombr’s laidback 2000s indie. Indeed, a void has to be filled somehow. But the gender scales were always going to feel dramatically tipped in favour of the Charlis, Sabrinas and Rosalías… until Harry Styles sauntered back onto the stage tonight in a little blue jumper and daisy print shirt, here to celebrate his new album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. Only he could elicit this level of guttural screaming: painful, blood-curdling shrieks at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena that, after 75 minutes, leave your ears aching.
The order of play is this: a full run through of Styles’s muted disco-pop LP, then a smattering of the big hits. We’ve been hearing and seeing a lot about his adventures in Europe – setting up shop in Berlin to record with longtime collaborator Kid Harpoon – but it’s still a surprise to be thrust into onto the dancefloor as the set opens. It’s twitchy, cold synths and migraine-inducing strobes while Styles twiddles around on the decks. No, it’s not Brat (though it’s lifted from the Brat tour playbook, now filtered up into the biggest mainstream male solo artist in the world). It’s Harry’s disco.
From the slow-burn hypnotic electronic pulse of lead single “Aperture” into the introspective synth-pop of “American Girls”, Styles sings and swings his hips with a vaguely sensual nonchalance. Songs that are relaxed enough to disappear on the record feel generous live, helped by a big band and gospel choir. Tonight’s event is being filmed, edited and uploaded to Netflix and will air on Sunday; the first time a Styles performance has been made available in this way. This means phones have been packaged into plastic bags, locking the crowd into the present moment and lifting the energy into something distinctly communal.
Styles’s words are few, but over the course of the evening, he makes it clear that after taking so much time away, this album means a great deal to him. More than once he says, “I rediscovered what a privilege it is to be in people’s lives through music.” Ahead of mid-tempo romantic ballad “Coming Up Roses,” he adds that he’s especially proud of Kiss All the Time… and it shows. For such a seasoned entertainer, he doesn’t have to perform these songs; it’s as if he’s simply breathing, not dancing but moving naturally for himself. You sense that he genuinely enjoys the music he’s created.
There are a few micro-moments that would, by now, be viral on TikTok should fans have access to their phones, not least the predictable crowd response (hysteria) to the line “It’s nice to mix two flavours” on “Pop”. That said, almost everything about this show is fluid, unimpeded by emotion, or mistakes, or the texture of real life. This is part of the thrill of watching Styles in concert: he’s controlled, almost elegant, to the point of perfection. It’s all oddly reassuring, a smooth experience you can gulp right down.
Once Styles reaches the bangers outro – a flawless salvo of “From The Dining Table,” “Golden,” “Watermelon Sugar,” and “As It Was” – you understand and appreciate that Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally was a deliberate attempt to strip back the spunky Styles radio hits and do something different. Hearing it live in full confirms that it succeeds as a cohesive album; you could study it and not find a single seam.
In 2026, there was only one way a Harry Styles show could end, with his favourite slightly apolitical topic: kindness. “In a world we have today that feels so chaotic, it’s easy to become hopeless,” he says, in his longest speech of the night. “I encourage you to keep being the change in the world you want to see.” He acknowledges the “scary things” happening but reiterates, “love is powerful, kindness is powerful”. Then he breaks into his soaring ballad and first ever solo single, “Sign of the Times”.
Before tonight, I’d wondered if Styles had been gone too long. Would this new album feel out of step with pop culture? What does he mean in 2026? It would seem that none of that matters now, at least not when anyone with a Netflix account will watch this show from Sunday. There is only one Harry Styles and he has returned as a man more comfortable in his own skin, barely trying, with zero self-consciousness. Not unlike his fans, who, given relief from the tyranny of their phones, probably had the most freeing gig of their lives – and get to watch it back in HD, anyway.
