In his new video, Harry Styles leads the greatest pep rally ever. The “Dance No More” clip begins with Styles walking into a circle of musicians, dancing and singing, and eventually when (college-aged) students show up to watch him, the gym transforms into a a dance floor with everyone doing coordinated moves. By the end of it, people are of course kissing, because that’s what should be happening all the time. Colin Solal Cardo, who has made clips for Roby, Wolf Alice, and Charli XCX, directed the video.
“Dance No More” appears on Styles’ latest album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. Earlier this year, the musician performed the song during his double-duty stint on Saturday Night Live. It was an unexpected choice given the previous release of singles “Aperture” and “American Girls.” But “Dance No More” perhaps best captures the beating heart of the album.
“Good electronic music is so good, you know — especially the melodic aspect. When you’re out at night, it’s such a community, but you’re also watching people have such individual experiences,” Styles told Runner’s World. “I wanted to recreate [what] I had on the dance floor, being lost in instrumentation and the musicality. It was so immersive, like, this is how I want to feel when I’m on stage too. I don’t want it to feel like a sermon I’m delivering. I wanted it to feel like, oh, we’re in this music together. Like I’m in it with you.”
The album pairs pulsating, upbeat moments like “Dance No More,” “Pop,” “Are You Listening Yet,” and “Ready, Steady, Go” with cathartic records like “Carla’s Song” and “Season 2 Weight Loss.” “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally is more sensory, less star-driven than the music they’ve made before,” Rolling Stone wrote in a review of the album. “Styles’ voice is sometimes secondary to the tracks, filtered or submerged in the mix. And though there are hooks — plenty of them — they too sometimes take a back seat to low-frequency thumps, grooves, shimmies, and shakes that are dirty in ways both sonic and erotic. This is music more invested in being than meaning, experience rather than ego.”
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