the 1975

I'm not as invested or versed in this band as y'all
but I really like this, it's a great pop/rock record

It's odd, because it seems like ppl like this less than the last one but this one clicks with me in a way the others didn't

I also thing the whole releasing half the album in drips and drabs kinda sucks and I like all those songs better in context

sympathetic to anyone who thinks the singles are the best stuff here after a few listens bc i spent a few days not knowing what to make of the record, but "i like america," "how to draw/petrichor," "i couldn't be more in love," and "i always wanna die sometimes" are pretty easily up there with "sincerity" and "love it if we made it" for me

― princess of hell (BradNelson)

otm

i know it's probably too early to do this, but what the hell.

a possible top:

love it if we made it
i like america & america likes me
it’s not living (if it’s not with you)
i always wanna die (sometimes)
sincerity is scary
i couldn’t be more in love
TooTimeTooTimeTooTime
how to draw / petrichor
surround by heads and bodies
mine
give yourself a try
inside your mind
be my mistake
the man who married a robot / love theme

Reading that Dazed interview ... would any reviews have mentioned OK Computer had there not been a robot-voiced spoken word track? Because I otherwise don't hear OK Computer at all, any more than I heard it in the last record, which was also not at all.

lots of gorgeous music on this album

Matt Healy has talked about his goals for The 1975's third album, and he's used Radiohead's OK Computer and The Smiths The Queen Is Dead as an example of what he's aiming for.

As reported by NME, speaking in the latest issue of Q Magazine, the frontman revealed: “If you look at third albums, OK Computer or The Queen Is Dead, that’s what we need to do.”

and i
always wanna diiiiiiiiie
sometiiiimes
aaaaaaaaah

Matt Healy could have said he was aiming for TLC's "Crazysexycool" and Tom Petty's "Long After Dark" and we'd see that popping up in reviews, too.

"Sincerity is Scary" has some drunken J. Dilla production vibes.

Listening to "Surrounded By Heads And Bodies" I can believe in a music journalist making the mental leap to Radiohead while listening to it, or even Healy making the mental leap while writing it

Maybe? I don't really hear it. Vs. "The Man Who Married a Robot," which yeah, that was done on purpose.

there’s some radioheadey moments on here, fewer than on ILIWYS tho

Yeah, yet I don't recall anyone really bringing up Radiohead with the last album, either.

Give Yourself A Try sounds a lot like Radio Dept to me

"Sincerity is Scary" has some drunken J. Dilla production vibes.

reminds me of donnie trumpet's surf

Oh wait, you mean those few measures of sort of menacing stuff in "Surrounded By Heads And Bodies?" Yeah, fleeting, but it's there!

also "i always wanna die" doesn't not sound like bends-era radiohead

i really think 'love it if we made it' is one of the best songs on here, replay value wise especially ... i feel like ppl diverge from it because its so trad compared to some of the more outlier type musical choices but lyrically + musically it's an exceptional emotional experience

doh I meant "give yourself a try"

obv everyone loves 'love it if we made it.' 'give yourself a try' is more trad-1975 but i think it's a really incredible version of that.

not saying the album doesn't live up to it or anything -- i need to spend more time w it -- just reacting to tracklist rankings that suggest 'give yourself a try' is bottom tier

i love all of the bright little guitar embellishments that burn behind the "disorder" riff around the second verse/chorus

i would love an ep or short alb of ‘give yourself a try’ type stuff

more and more i'm like "oh yeah of course 'sincerity is scary' is the best 1975 song"

I don't get this band at all nor do I have anything interesting to say about it yet here I am anyway. I'm vicariously enjoying your enthusiasm, though, especially Brad's.

it's strange how we put more faith in whatever Healy says about intentions than we do with most other artists we discuss

Antichrist

— matty (@Truman_Black) November 30, 2018

i would love an ep or short alb of ‘give yourself a try’ type stuff

― flopson, Friday, November 30, 2018 1:52 PM (fifty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the first album!!

otm

/their best album by far *ducks*

I always feel that way (sometimes)

that dazed digital interview is awesome, prob the best i've read this cycle

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Friday, 30 November 2018 4:18 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah the stuff about phone addiction seemed super sharp to me.

it's strange how we put more faith in whatever Healy says about intentions than we do with most other artists we discuss

― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 November 2018 7:39 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Perhaps this reflects that the band's stylistic parameters and affiliations seem so amorphous and omnivorous (have we updated the list of the artist comparisons from earlier in the thread?) that it's like listeners need Matt as a tour guide in order to understand how it fits together and where it's supposed to be going - "oh, this building over here is where the Chancellor of the Exchequer used to sit, now it's the Museum of Modern Art..."

I'd rather run into the museum's outer wall without looking

tl;dr – This is my favorite album of 2018.

Loved the Joy Division influence in "Give Yourself a Try" since my first listen. Love the abstract guitar during the verses. Nice sequencing following up that propulsive opener with "TooTimeTooTimeTooTime," which may be the catchiest thing they've ever done. Lyrics blur the lines between another woman vs. behind-her-back drug usage. I've been there with heroin so tons of lyrics from this album are resonating with me, not just in terms of talking about drug addiction, but the mental frailty and obsessive nature that comes along with it. It takes about 3 minutes for "How to Draw/Petrichor" to really get started, but once it kicks in ... holy shit, it's really something. First half of the track is a pretty hard pump-fake to the UK garage-sounding second half of the track. Seems like there's more vocal manipulation on this new album than on past efforts. Pretty firmly in the camp that "Love It If We Made It" is the best, most poignant song of the year. (Tell me something I didn't know.) Not in love with "Be My Mistake" but it's a good change of pace and doesn't overstay its welcome at first listen in sequence. Absolutely in love with "Sincerity Is Scary," love the jazz instrumentation. Reminds me of Kendrick's "LOVE." and D'Angelo's stuff more than anything previously released by this band. Sounds incredible and really opens up on good headphones! I'm sure there have been comparisons to Bon Iver for "I Like America and America Likes Me." but I haven't read the thread in full here. Sounds like something Bon Iver would sing over a light trap beat, which is pretty awesome considering how it reads on paper. The repeated lyrical couplet "I'm scared of dying / It's fine" is one of my favorite moments on the album. At risk of sounding like a lazy music journalist, "The Man Who Married a Robot" really does sound like the 2018 answer to "Fitter Happier" in the best possible way. First chord of "Inside Your Mind" feels like time is frozen when I hear it. Might be my favorite song on the whole album. Still wish the shoegaze-y guitar part blossoming in the final chorus would be a little more Sonic Youth, a little less Raveonettes (as much as I love both). The hooks all across "It's Not Living..." are glorious and catchy as all heavens. Gotta admit that "Surrounded by Heads and Bodies" drags a little bit (like the end of the last album) but it segues into "Mine" so it's still hard to complain. The instrumentation in that track is gorgeous (again – headphones!) and sparse in the best way possible. Sounds like something from a vocal jazz album! Really subtle and beautiful. Not sure how I feel about the schmaltzy penultimate track yet, but the closing song is a lighters-held-high anthem, and I couldn't be happier overall. We have 7th row tickets to see the 1975 at Red Rocks in a few months, and they now have enough songs to fill a 20-song setlist with something special from start to finish. Great album and a really compelling listen!

Taken as a whole, I can really relate to the 100-miles-a-minute approach of Matty's lyrics, the ground they cover, how his brain darts from political unrest to personal turmoil to romance to the world at large. It probably seems scatterbrained and incoherent to some people, but that's exactly how I think, too, and how my brain works. I can't really think of an album in the last few years that feels more tailor-made for my own life experiences and thought process. Absolutely love this album! And yes, those of us who picked these guys as their "new favorite band" really couldn't have done any better. Hoping the next album is similarly incredible.

Just finished my first listen to this and will definitely be giving this a few more listens before I fully make up my mind how I feel about this one, but so far I agree with kitchen person regarding the intro (I don't like what they've done with it, I find the sound of it obnoxious and felt it was quite a bad start to an album I'd been looking forward to) and I agree with imago in the sense that I don't think this is better than the previous one (which I now consider to be one of my favourite albums released this decade) ... I thought the production on 'Give Yourself a Try' was lacking, but 'TooTimeTooTimeTooTime' is fucking great, and the album got better from there.

no one cares

I'm already going in for another listen, for me that's a good sign.

*hears opening chords of "inside your mind"* *every lighter in the arena ignites*

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Monday, November 26, 2018 12:34 AM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this post ages badly once you get to the lyrics lol

incredibly dark song set to the chords from idk 'baba o'reilly'

'How to Draw/Petrichor' strikes me as being one of the best things this band have ever done.

this post ages badly once you get to the lyrics lol

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Friday, November 30, 2018 5:56 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol you don't say

what i love about that song is how it sounds enormous, as if it were actually occurring in an actual arena, but incredibly lonely (bc the arena is empty). its lack of development kinda confirms that it's a thought spiral (which is one of the reasons why it reminds me of "me")

listened to this 4 or 5 times today. i was craving more 80s rock moves but otherwise i wasn’t let down. i think the ‘too many ballads’ problem is worse on ILIWYS

'Inside Your Mind' comes across to me as musically being a slower variation of 'Give Yourself a Try' ...

just came back from a release party in Chicago. 80% girls and young women, and also probably like 50% POC as well, which is a nice reminder to receive when you're a little too embedded in music media discourse. heard twitter mentioned a bunch of times, which i found funny—there's a definite difference between "Twitter Gen Zers" and "Insta Gen Zers" if that makes sense, and the 1975 feels informed by the former, feeding in from tumblr as many of them have over the years.

i am starting to utterly love this album. the only speedbumps for me are "be my mistake," "sincerity is scary," and the robot song... and even so i'm not skipping any of them.

i might be crazy, but some of the phrasing in "i like america" reminds me of "my teenage dream ended"

Ah, of course the intro is actually the piano chords from 'Sincerity is Scary' colliding with "robotic" vocals, that makes quite a fair bit of sense thematically.

Album is sounding even better on third listen.

love this album

what a closer

they shud do slapp happy next

"how to draw/petrichor" is really sublime, what can't this band do