The best case for this comes at the very end of A Brief Inquiry, on three previously unreleased tracks. Because the fact is that you can rationalize-you can know that the fable about the internet is fake deep you can think, "Did he really say that someone’s hair smells like feet? " you can wring your hands about how much you really fucking hated the last album title-but ultimately it is all pointless, because Healy is so charming and sincere, and the pop tracks on this album are so infectious, that The 1975 have become basically undeniable. But there are other instances, like on “Give Yourself a Try” (“ I found a grey hair in one of my zoots”), and “Mine” (“ I fight crime online sometimes”), which are less convincing-and yet, nine times out of ten on A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, Healy’s personal bombast, and his confidence in his project, just about carries even the most brow furrowing of lines off.īecause for the most part, the band function almost entirely without self-consciousness (maybe that's why a mostly instrumental track like “How to Draw / Petrichor,” the closest the record comes to posturing, if we're being honest, jars slightly), and this feels like a huge part of their success and allure. Sometimes it hits beautifully, as on the Song of the Year-level standout “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You),” a love song but about heroin, where a backing vocal (“ selling petro-oh-ol”) becomes one of the best moments of the album. This said, it’s very possible those words could grate-some critical resistance to the band is rooted in Healy’s lyrical style, which can feel haphazard or contrived. Similarly, “Give Yourself a Try,” on which Healy asks “ What would you say to your younger self?” before dispensing advice on drinking whiskey and growing a beard, could be seen as a wizened, almost-30-year-old speaking gently to the army of teens who hang on his words. This will almost certainly turn some listeners off – it’s more than a bit “ what if phones but too much”-though it’s worth noting that for teenage fans, who are, rightfully, the listeners this record keeps most in mind (I’ve written before about how its singles bend to the listening habits of younger people), it’s possible that the track might be offering a point of view previously not considered. On interlude “The Man Who Married a Robot / Love Theme,” for example, Siri does a spoken word monologue about the ills of the internet. Instead, the band goes for a kind of detached observation, which doesn't feel as successful (The 1975 are much better hopeful than scathing). It is 15 songs that are about possibilities over conclusions, and as Jazz Monroe writes for the Independent, “Resolutions seldom materialize, because Healy wants something else – to shrink his reality into compact pop songs that pose extravagant questions.” Resolutions, in fact, rarely even matter, because Healy is here to tell you about life, the world as he sees it, and how, above all, hope can change everything before you get to the end.Įlsewhere, on the subject of the modern world, you find less immediate relief. It makes sense, then, that as a globally famous rock band in 2018, The 1975 would like to present you with optimism.īecause A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships is forward looking. In the past, organizing thousands of people around a single mood or message in this way has felt angled towards disillusionment (as in the case of Nirvana), or difference (My Chemical Romance), or some other feeling of being generally at odds with the dominant ideology of the times. All it takes is a quick search of the band’s name on social media to get a sense of the round-the-clock fervor that they, and particularly their frontman Matty Healy (a sort of drama queen, millennial Bowie in a puffa jacket) already inspire.
It’s a feat that only the most culturally significant rock bands accomplish, and you'd be foolish at this point to argue that The 1975 are anything else, in the UK at the very least.