the 1975

i look forward to you hating this record

i have absolutely no idea how to approach this myself

i think if anything i'm expecting to like it quite a bit, which opens up the danger of being disappointed....by the 1975. weird times

it's full of curveballs, i expect you'll appreciate that aspect of it

i'm excited less by that and more by how intensely-realised everyone says it is

yeah every style they approach is conveyed as a gorgeous mesh polygon and then arranged somehow into a coherent hour-long narrative. lol obviously i haven't really listened to anything else in the past week

i look forward to you hating this record

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Wednesday, February 24, 2016 5:39 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's often easy to forget right now just how much of a joke the music and fashions of the '80s used to be considered to be. There were some exceptions: The Smiths being one, R.E.M. being another - but on the whole, the '80s was considered to be, at one point, a very naff decade. It was therefore of some delight when some of my favourite synthpop artists from the period found themselves being critically re-appreciated and being listened to, at long last, without prejudice. Finally, the unfairly maligned '80s were being reassessed and about time, people were discovering that it wasn't all bad and they were taking from the best of the decade, and they were leaving the absolute garbage, like yer Level 42's etc., to be forgotten about...

...until I inadvertently heard 'Love Me' and realised The 1975 had managed to synthesise everything that was so wretched and thoroughly shit about 1986-1987 and squeeze it into one three and a half minute long turd. Well, I guess someone had to do it. It's very much a given at this stage that I will never intentionally listen to anything by this thoroughly fucking crap band.

the absolute garbage, like yer Level 42's etc.

lol everytime you post in this thread it's like a whole new dimension of "wow this isn't for you at all" is opened

Oh, come on! Level 42 weren't ever good! Fucking ponytail & filofax music.

So you don't think Mark King is the greatest bass player off all time?

is it so wrong to be human after all

It's often easy to forget right now just how much of a joke the music and fashions of the '80s used to be considered to be. There were some exceptions: The Smiths being one, R.E.M. being another - but on the whole, the '80s was considered to be, at one point, a very naff decade. It was therefore of some delight when some of my favourite synthpop artists from the period found themselves being critically re-appreciated and being listened to, at long last, without prejudice. Finally, the unfairly maligned '80s were being reassessed and about time, people were discovering that it wasn't all bad and they were taking from the best of the decade, and they were leaving the absolute garbage, like yer Level 42's etc., to be forgotten about...

― The Dave Grohl of ILX (Turrican), Wednesday, February 24, 2016 10:13 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah 80s music is amazing

My god this album.

The title track should be the centrepiece track on any future 'Immer 4'.

god bless this album god bless this band god bless matty healy

ysi

'if i believe you' is the most beautiful and sensual piece of music i listened since beyoncé's 'rocket'.

pretty stunning album!!

this reminds me a bit of what bloc party wanted to do with their second album except kele wasn't quite crazy enough... or not crazy enough in the right ways

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrcvttiQ_wI

"please be naked"

otm

yeah every style they approach is conveyed as a gorgeous mesh polygon and then arranged somehow into a coherent hour-long narrative. lol obviously i haven't really listened to anything else in the past week

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson

you must have been fun in geometry class

the title track is fuckin crazy

I sucked at geometry, my similes should convey this almost exclusively

Write your next review as a proof!

the title track is like an ambient interlude that morphs into minimal techno and then blooms into a janet song??

http://img.sparknotes.com/figures/9/9468de070d794b4c203fe8a51bd73917/sampleproofb.gif

1975 x (Level) 42 = 82950, 29th August 1950 was the birthdate of one of the 9/11 pilots, matt healy knows everything

there's something about you

is it just me that thinks that when Healy mentioned 'tango in the night' to stereogum he probably was refering to 'paris'? it seems so laidback and innocent and then it's just so sad. but fascinating.

Healy's mentioning Tango in the Night the apotheosis of what lots of have said in the last six years about that album as lodestar for a certain cohort.

Oh, come on! Level 42 weren't ever good! Fucking ponytail & filofax music.

― The Dave Grohl of ILX (Turrican)

http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2014/08/various-artists-now-thats-what-i-call.html

this reminds me a bit of what bloc party wanted to do with their second album except kele wasn't quite crazy enough... or not crazy enough in the right ways

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, February 24, 2016 6:35 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

look i love this album and the 1975 and Matty an unreasonable amount for someone in their late 20s, but Bloc Party did exactly what they wanted to do on A Weekend in the City and it was fucking excellent. these are very different beasts, songs about cocaine notwithstanding. like, I haven't absorbed this record enough to really entirely sure what the narrative is, but Weekend is an album about being the token black guy in the British indie scene, and about queerness in the midst of bros, and about Kele's attempts to discuss big political issues & personal tragedies simultaneously.

I mean. I get that they both do occasionally ham-fisted lyrics, and are 80s influenced, and are alienated from their audiences or w/e but I just don't hear it.

(but to be positive, THIS ALBUM. THIS. ALBUM. the sparkle and twinkle on The Ballad of Me and My Brain)

i liked the first album a lot but man this one is really something huh

the last minute of "change of heart"

this is sort of like a midpoint between A Walk Across the Rooftops and Sign o' the Times

hahahaha yesssssssss

Yeah I was thinking of Sign.

Also the midpoint of The Velvet Rope and Adore?

aka it's my favorite record of all time I guess

lol

I so regret we can't discuss hyperboles in real time this weekend

*indicates album cover* it me

You guys have got me excited about an album I didn't really have any interest in a few weeks ago. All these Blue Nile, Fleetwood Mac, Prince, Duran Duran and Scritti Politti references are right up my street. I think I'm going to buy it on Friday without listening to it before, just like in the old days.

the title track is fucking blowing my mind

you could straight up drop that 90 second bit of it in a house club

the outro of "change of heart" is so sublime

it's incredible the biggest risks on this record -- "if i believe you", the title track, even "the ballad of me and my brain" if it was longer -- are the ones they pull off flawlessly

yeah I agree w/ that. in general the "safer" bits are the least arresting (though still fine)

you could straight up drop that 90 second bit of it in a house club

― J0rdan S., Thursday, February 25, 2016 4:50 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The shifts on this record can be quite jarring but the drop from that into full bore house-pop of "The Sound" is inspired.

One of the things those jarring stylistic transitions can obscure is that thematically the album charts a fairly straight, unbroken line of ascent/descent from cynical superficiality (songs about being obsessed with your own fame, being addicted to coke) to naive sincerity (songs about your dead grandma and your mother's post-natal depression).

I do kinda wish "Nana" was somewhere in the middle of the record, maybe slotted after "Somebody Else," as a sonic palate cleanser, but that's just my inner tinkerer talking

THE
BALLAD
OF
ME
AND
MY
BRAIN