To All The 1975 Lovers, Here’s My Ode To 'A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships'
The 1975 is back and unapologetic.
The 1975 is a band that continues to push the boundaries of what 'pop music' can be; they're known for their chilling ballads, electric melodies, and soothing instrumentals. With their self-titled debut album, the 1975 broke out onto the rock scene, yet they added their own touch by mixing genres and experimenting with instrumentals and vocals. Although they were considered a rock band, their self-titled album featured songs with electropop and indie rock auras. Then, with their next album, "I like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it," their eclectic sounds once again range from dancy ballads to acoustic lullabies to modern rock, but with a heavier emphasis on the pop music. This was the album that gave us bops like "UGH!" and "Love Me." Spearheaded by main vocalist Matt Healy's push against mainstream pop music, the band has reinvented what the genre can mean with their second album. Then, their third album, "A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships" came out on November 30, 2018.
On the surface, their newest album follows the same structure as their previous ones: composed of heart-warming love ballads, exciting pop songs, and soft instrumentals. But the band always has a way to disguise their deeper essence behind innocent-sounding songs with the use of fun names and flashy instrumentals. For example, "Love It If We Made It," sounds like a song you blast in the car with friends, but the lyrics, "Oh F*ck your feelings / Truth is only hearsay / We're just left to decay / Modernity has failed us" suggests otherwise. In that song, the 1975 examines modern society through a critical lens, highlighting hot topics like immigration, religion, drugs, and politics. Another example is "I Couldn't Be More In Love," which sounds like any typical love song, yet it was actually recorded the day before Healy entered rehab last year where he croons about the end of a long relationship and how it has affected him. He sings "But what about these feelings I've got?" with immense compassion; you could feel his pain seeping through the lyrics as he explores post-breakup emotions.
Not only are the vocals and lyrics masterfully planned, the instrumentals perfectly shapes the mood each song is distinctly trying to portray. The album overall starts with high energy songs like "Give Yourself A Try" and "TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME", which feature the higher range on electric guitars and keyboards. Then, more mellow songs like "Mine" and "I Couldn't Be More In Love" feature jazz elements, with its skillful use of the saxophone and a choir.
"A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships" reflects a sense of maturity and growth within the band, and it has the ability to transfer that feeling onto anyone who listens close enough. From listening to their self-titled album in 2013 as a young angsty teen to listening to their second album in 2016 as a naive high schooler, I can proudly say that I'm listening to their newest album in 2018 a little wiser and a little more in love with The 1975.
The stage setup after SHAED's performance at Mercury Lounge on Thursday, September 20, 2018.
The Midsummer Station Tour
Adam Young's iconic "I AM" t-shirt
The 1975 Uses Political Language And Societal Commentary To Draw Inspiration For Their Songs
Some of the lines are: "Selling melanin and then suffocate the black men/Start with misdemeanors and we'll make a business out of them."
When you first hear the words, "The 1975," you probably don't think of band, a year, definitely, but not a band. Well, prepare yourself, because you are about to be introduced to the best band of all time. I am a huge fan of the band, The 1975, and I am here to tell you why you should listen to them too.
The British-band consists of Matthew (Matty) Healy (vocals, guitar), George Daniel (drums), Adam Hann (guitar) and Ross MacDonald (Bass). So far, they've released two albums, the first one was self-titled, "The 1975." But the second one was a bit more lengthy with "I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it." But now, they have a third album coming out on November 30 called, "A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships," and I've never been more excited. To make things even better, they're planning on releasing a fourth album in May called "Notes on a Conditional Form."
Trying to describe the sound of The 1975 is a little hard because they're a little bit of everything. They're techno, pop, indie rock, rock, alternative, indie pop, electropop, and the list goes on (but that's the whole point.) They're the type of band that you can't really categorize because they don't want to be categorized and they shouldn't be. While some of their songs are similar, they're also dramatically different. One song has a gospel choir in the background and another song mostly consists of relaxing sounds and minimal vocals. A few songs have insane guitar riffs, another is a ballad and one only has an acoustic guitar.
4 out of the 15 songs on their upcoming album have been released as singles in the following order: "Give Yourself a Try," Love It If We Made It," "TooTimeTooTimeTooTime," and "Sincerity Is Scary." Of these songs, "Love It If We Made It" and "Sincerity Is Scary" are my favorites. I love the political commentary in "Love It If We Made It," which I will get into later, and "Sincerity Is Scary" is one of those songs that you can sit down and listen to relax.
Two of the best things about The 1975 is their lyrics and the topics that they address. There are a lot of amazing songwriters out there, but I have to say, The 1975 is pretty hard to beat. Take their single "Love It If We Made it" for example. It's an extremely political and topical song and its lyrics are pretty in-your-face. Some of the lines are: "Selling melanin and then suffocate the black men/Start with misdemeanors and we'll make a business out of them."
Just these two lines are already full of political commentary.
Selling melanin could be a reference to the slave trade as African Americans have a lot of melanin in their skin, which gives them their skin tone, and suffocate the black men is a direct reference to Eric Garner, a black man who was suffocated while he was in a choke hold sustained by a police officer. The part about misdemeanors relates to the prison system in the United States and how a large percentage of inmates are African American who are in prison just for misdemeanors.
The band loves to comment on society, more specifically American society, and there's a handful of songs that are about drugs and/or addiction, something that the lead singer Matty lives with.
Something to note about each album they have is that there's always a song titled "The 1975." The songs have the same lyrics, but different styles. It's meant to give a little taste of what the album will sound like and highlight the differences between this album and the one before/after it. For example, the "the 1975" song in "i like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it" includes some gospel singers in the background, more sounds that you can imagine might be found on an alien spaceship and crescendos to the end of the song, while in the first album, the song is more subdued and ends with a decrescendo.
The 1975 also has an interesting way of mixing sound. They'll overlay robotic sounds with a guitar riff or a prominent drum beat. In the song "Sincerity is Scary," they bring back the saxophone sound that was heard in the song "If I believe you" and instead of meshing it with a light doo-wop beat, they combine it with a piano and a soft drum. They'll always find a way to make two very different instruments work together in harmony.
A lot of people may not be into the sound that The 1975 has, specifically older generations as they might think it's annoying, but my mom really likes their music, so how bad can they be? If you're into a mix of songs and if you're always down for a groovy beat, I'd definitely recommend giving them a try.