Neither Hit Nor Flop: Harry Styles
“Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” has this year been number 1 across nearly all of Europe (the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain…), as well as Australia, the United States and Canada. It has already earned platinum status in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Portugal, in addition to gold certifications in France, Germany, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Denmark, among other territories. With 1.5 million copies sold, it will be one of the best-selling albums of 2026 and, under no circumstances, can it be described as a flop.
However, it is true that it has not matched the spectacular figures of his previous work. “Harry’s House” moved 6 million units just between 2022 and 2023, the same total that “Fine Line” sold between 2020 and 2021. The decline is evident, and Harry Styles has faded somewhat from the cultural conversation with this different… but not that experimental—after all—album.
The album “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” is indeed less commercial and, as a result, its streaming figures are more modest. The single “American Girls” tallies 285 million streams on Spotify. “Aperture,” the lead single, sits at around 250 million, and other tracks surpassing 100 million on that streaming platform include the beautiful “Coming Up Roses” and “Taste Back.” The problem is that the 2.0 billion for “Adore You” and “Sign of the Times,” the 3.0 billion for “Watermelon Sugar,” and the 4.5 billion for “As It Was” weigh too heavily. What we are looking at is a tenfold dilution of the reach of all of them.
And that’s not all: the only Harry songs currently appearing on the Global 200 are old ones: “Sign of the Times” (52) and “As It Was” (78). This era is passing far more quietly. Harry moved almost everything in its first week, but then it collapsed: on the Billboard 200, for example, this new album spends its 22nd week at position 118.
Neither Hit Nor Flop: Bruno Mars
A case very similar is Bruno Mars’s, with a few differences. The singles from his new album, “Rist It All” and “I Just Might,” are more commercially oriented, have been better embraced by radio stations and playlists, and each one surpasses 500 million streams on Spotify. Furthermore, both tracks remain on the Global 200, making a billion streams not out of the question in the coming months or years.
Nevertheless, he too bears the weight of the 3.0 billion tallied by “Locked Out of Heaven,” “Just The Way You Are,” “That’s What I Like” and “When I Was Your Man.” “Die With a Smile” with Lady Gaga is expected to top 4.0 billion soon.
But what may weigh most on Bruno Mars is his enormous difficulty in selling albums, even when his singles perform well on radio and playlists. “The Romantic” topped the Billboard 200 and Canada, but little more. In the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and France it peaked in the top 3, in Italy in the top 7, and subsequently it hasn’t maintained momentum as well. In fact, “The Romantic” has just dropped out of the UK Top 100 after only 12 weeks. Despite solid radio performance, it seems he struggles to cultivate a audience willing to spend money on buying his records or listening to them in full.
Again, with 1.5 million copies sold worldwide, according to Mediatraffic, we cannot call it a flop. It will also be one of the best-selling albums of 2026. But the figures far exceed Bruno’s standards. His earlier albums have multi-platinum certifications in numerous countries. For now, “The Romantic” has not gone platinum anywhere and has only achieved gold status in Canada, France and New Zealand.
