the 1975

"happiness" is more way more interesting to me as a song about experiencing love while, in the very margins of your thinking, doubting its reality

is ann the only music critic still getting paid for writing thinkpieces that thread together several modern topics of discourse, haven't encountered one of these in a while lol

she showed me what love is. i'm acting like i know myself

I'm not much for accuracy with lyrics tbh. Accuracy matters at karaoke and not even then.

Drawing a link btw Kurt Cobain and modern “incels” seems to be the critical trope of the moment.

yeah I sort of think that if you’re going to attempt a text-based analysis of a work it’s necessary to get the text right

I’m one listen in, apart from the songs we’ve already heard the one I’m most into is “about you” — layering their early sound under shoegaze fuzz seems like a pretty foolproof formula

"The Proud Boys ape grunge styles, and incels express anxieties about sexual disempowerment that strangely echo Cobain."

I thought the proud boys wore Fred Perry and Ben Sherman style stuff

I'm not much for accuracy with lyrics tbh. Accuracy matters at karaoke and not even then.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, October 15, 2022 10:14 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

accuracy actually does matter for close-reading

pretty disappointed in matty for leaving ann powers on new years eve and also being the unabomber

same

accuracy actually does matter for close-reading

― flamenco drop (BradNelson),

It's still a sympathetic take. Healy's always come off as a rascal, scamp, asshole, whatever -- a long tradition with male frontmen. Mishearing lyrics doesn't change for me the effectiveness of that take. It's still a fucking long essay, though, and after the first few hundred words my attention wavered.

The friction between being an unabashed rock fan and the fact that a lot of the charismatic dudes are inna dirtbag style which is both off putting and attractive (even if their actual dirtbagness is maybe a pose) rings p true. Surprised she didn’t make room to mention the dirtbag (not pose) rock king Ryan Adams.

ok sorry i am definitely approaching that piece with the wrong expectations, bc for me ideally a long npr piece on this band would explore the record, and this is more interested in using it as a jumping off point to talk about the way an archetype solidifies over time and takes form in both reality and recent hbo shows

Whither “fuckboi”

matty seems nice imho, not dirtbag at all

Even if he was that’s such a boring & uninteresting angle on an album

I do like that as a continuation of your take on the Seinfeld cast. They do seem like supportive friends lol. I was rewatching Seinfeld recently and thinking about that curb plot where everyone keeps describing George as a “loser” and Larry is like he’s not a loser … he’s based on me

one of the things that makes me very grateful for ilm is the contrast between the way this thread talks about this band and the way npr/pitchfork/music media talk about them, where every sentence is Matty Lyrics About Memes Earnest Millenial Trump Irony Cancel Culture Self-Aware Toxic. critics' understanding of this band is stunted at 'love it if we made it'

I do like that as a continuation of your take on the Seinfeld cast. They do seem like supportive friends lol. I was rewatching Seinfeld recently and thinking about that curb plot where everyone keeps describing George as a “loser” and Larry is like he’s not a loser … he’s based on me

― xheugy eddy (D-40), Saturday, October 15, 2022 8:40 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

1975 are def the seinfeld of indie rock

This album is good. They had such lofty standards that I think I expected more, side two is on the weaker side. Still love their sound however.

Only two listens so far so have the right to change my mind by years end

i do wish matty had written a bit less about being "cancelled" on this album though & he's admitted as much in interviews

i think part of his appeal is that he's good at toeing the line with the dirtbag thing. his persona is as much that as it has in common with say, ezra from vampire weekend (who i don't think really fits into it at all despite what's known about his personal life), just without ezra's upper class pose

https://www.drjimtaylor.com/4.0/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/costanza-arm.jpg
How seinfeld’s George costanza became the bad boy you love to roll your eyes at

there’s something very particular the “about you” reminds me of — the blue nile, for sure, but the the melody of the hook is so warmly familiar for some reason and I just can’t place it, it’s driving me nuts

"with or without you"? probably not the one you're thinking of though

in the seinfeld analogy matty is george/larry (widely misunderstood as a misanthrope/narcissist dirtbag but is actually a nice guy, only really unusual for how open he is about his flaws) while ezra is jerry (dated a teenager)

Brad made me lol but also it OTM about “about you” being a “me” and “you” together song

Even if he was that’s such a boring & uninteresting angle on an album

― xheugy eddy (D-40)

idk I appreciated it because I'm not seeing a lot of women writing at length about this album or them at length who are also taking the album and band seriously, whether here or elsewhere (and if I'm missing anything, please point me to them!)

thought the ann powers piece was good. this is as otm a description of matty as i've read

But for all the leading man tendencies he exhibits, Healy remains a trickster. He can't give up his wicked insights, his distancing jests, his assertions of independence. Salting the music's earnestness with sarcasm and intimations of self-sabotage, Healy ultimately stays true to the archetype he's always best embodied – a hyper-intellectual sybarite who loves pleasure and connection but needs to keep his distance to maintain his creativity and cool.

Looking for Somebody trades It’s Not Living’s smack for guns huh. what a smash

― anza808, Thursday, October 13, 2022 11:06 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Only post I've seen that directly engaged with the lyrics of "Looking for Somebody (To Love)." Am I the only one who finds the inevitable live sing-along of this upbeat anthem deeply unsettling and problematic?

studio version of "I'm In Love With You" still strikes me as a missed opportunity and i'm wondering what it would sound like if it was on any of their previous albums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORCNXtnlD38

live version of problematic song

i find the line "somebody picking up the body of somebody they were getting to know" so devastatingly sad when i know what the song's about, and i think that's ultimately why i don't find it problematic? it's inhabiting a totally toxically fucked perspective but healy as this fractally self-reflexive author is able to hover just one level of context above it at times so that i don't feel like i'm stuck in the echo chamber of some violent misogynist's mind, and it's ultimately what makes the song really textually interesting beyond it being a really happy-sounding song about something horrible

obv maybe a little edgelordy to be like "i'm going to write a song from the perspective of an incel school shooter" but healy for better or worse (better i think) is that kind of writer, and it's absolutely aligned with the impulse that created "love it if we made it" (is it problematic that their crowds sing "i moved on her like a bitch"?`)

tbh I had to google the lyrics to a song I'd already considered the album's catchiest and best. I thought he sang "Second Gentleman."

In a meeting so will need to watch the live performance in a bit but "I moved on her like a bitch" is a quote in a song about how "modernity has failed us." The commentary is quite clear to me. I don't like the first-person incel narrative of "Looking for Somebody" that is probably intentionally ambiguous about where to place the blame but am admittedly triggered (please ignore the pun) by school shooting shit as the father of young kids and spouse of a teacher.

Having now read the lyrics and listened to it again, isn't he in and out of the character's mind -- being him and observing him and vice versa?

(I'll also admit that I didn't know how "gentleman" now means incel).

The specific idea that school shooters are/were just "looking for somebody to love" it implies victim blaming. Reminds me of X Gonzalez's rant after Parkland when she said something to the effect of: critics say we shouldn't have ostracized him, but "you didn't know him, we did". Thinking of crowds of teenagers singing "bang bang bang bang" does not sit right with me.

*they

i think the idea of finding a sing along to a school shooter anthem problematic and unsettling is a completely fair position. on some level the song obviously intends to be unsettling. i've been thinking about why they didn't release it as a single given that, to me, it's clearly the catchiest pop song on the album. i wonder if they were a bit chastened by "love it if we made it" ... i kinda feel like not releasing it as a single is an implicit acknowledgement that the song is problematic & there was a desire on their end to not have the press cycle for this album defined by whether it's ok to release a giddy pop anthem from the POV of a school shooter. though it also must be acknowledged that "pumped up kicks" already got there a decade ago.

for me, the song comes from a place of empathy so i don't really find it problematic beyond the surface level tension of the sonics of the song vs the subject matter. but i also think that such a bait and switch is part & parcel of pop music... the song is basically their version of "born in the USA." the idea of american crowds -- which are, on some level, now defined by mass shootings (the anxiety, the hard logistics of what to do if there is a mass shooting where you're standing [i'm always making myself very cognizant of exits at venues]) -- singing along to an anthemic pop song about a mass shooter that asks you to consider the mass shooter's interior life and by extension what we as a society can do to help such ppl, makes for a really interesting communal experience/reaction to art. most "acceptable" mass shooting art i would imagine is pretty mawish. but not everyone has to want that communal experience either -- if everyone did then the song would be far less provocative.

i ultimately find it provocative but not in a troll-y way which, certainly for this band, makes it easier to defend than a lot of other stuff, to me. Indexed, you saying that the commentary on "i love it if we made it" is clear and so that makes quoting trump's misogyny not problematic to you is also a totally fair position but i do think that, for other people, ambiguity makes the art better. again i don't really begrudge anyone's position here but i think that that one can be enthralled or revolted (or both at the same time) is what makes the song great, aside from it just being a wonderful pop song. but i also love gus van sant's "elephant"

xp "Supreme Gentleman" is what incel mass shooter Elliot Rodger called himself in his manifesto, and it has since been adopted by the online incels who venerate him.

I generally agree with Brad's take on the song's lyrics. For me, the victim blaming implied by "looking for somebody to love" is a product of the shooter's deeply disturbed and hateful mind, not a view that's endorsed by Healy. Though I definitely understand why one might hear the whole thing as an exercise in poor taste.

the song is basically their version of "born in the USA."

I thought of this too, with a difference: the guy in the Springsteen song is sympathetic or at least not a sociopath.

the song is basically their version of "born in the USA."

I thought of this too, with a difference: the guy in the Springsteen song is sympathetic or at least not a sociopath.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, October 17, 2022 1:57 PM (five minutes ago)

for sure. but that's why i say it's "their version" bcuz a character as plainly sympathetic as the one in "born in the usa" is not the 1975's MO. (and i'm not denigrating "born in the USA" which is a great song and given springsteen's stature w/in american culture was a more difficult and loaded trick to play than anything matty will ever do.)

The specific idea that school shooters are/were just "looking for somebody to love" it implies victim blaming. Reminds me of X Gonzalez's rant after Parkland when she said something to the effect of: critics say we shouldn't have ostracized him, but "you didn't know him, we did"

― Indexed, Monday, October 17, 2022 1:28 PM (nineteen minutes ago)

i think this song is aiming to provoke questions around what society can do to embrace outcasts in a macro sense -- i don't read it as saying something as literal as "high school students bear the responsibility of making sure they don't get massacred by ostracized boys."

i do think it's a worthwhile conversation & it's one that a bunch of art across the political spectrum is attempting to have. on one end there is i.e. alex lee moyer "tfw no gf" which i haven't seen but is obv very divisive in the empathy it extends to incels. matty rubs up against that sphere online, i'm sure he's seen that movie. he posted recently about following ppl like andrew tate, ben shapiro for "research" ... you can draw a direct line from a lot of his public online activity to this song.

on the other end of the spectrum there's this documentary short that was released recently called "stranger at the gate" about an army veteran who intends to bomb a mosque in ohio. when he goes to case the mosque before the bombing he gets welcomed with open arms by the members there and ends up converting to islam and becoming a pillar of the community. it's a fascinating film and at only 30 mins i couldn't recommend it strongly enough if you're interested in this general conversation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbbl1S6foM

great posts j0rd

yeah

Yes, TY for your pov - much appreciated. It's been many many years since I saw Elephant but recall it being unambiguously cold and disturbing. "Looking for Somebody to Love" is a gleeful celebration. Maybe I'm supposed to find this ironic and witty, but unfortunately I don't.

well, it is gleeful. but i wouldn't call it a celebration. it seems plainly the opposite to me.

music should only be about unambiguously good things

It's been many many years since I saw Elephant but recall it being unambiguously cold and disturbing

this is a good analogy

"Looking..." is only ironic in the discrepancy between form and content, i.e. the gap between the lyrics and pretty hooks/danceable rhythm.