The 1975 - Being Funny in a Foreign Language (Oct 14, 2022) Album • Page 106

Haha, like these don't work for me at all.

I feel like Matty's obviously a vocalist/lyricist that people love/hate so much because he does such interesting things that cause strong opinions. That's just probably the main song in their discography where I'm on the other side of the fence for once lol.

 

The biggest thing for me with this album is that, for the first time ever from them, they've created an album that leaves me wanting more from them.

 

I don’t like how the little blurb from Pitchfork says “Matty Healy taps Jack Antonoff to produce…”, I mean I get he’s the frontman but it seems to me as though The 1975 is very much a band, as Matty himself has alluded to. Small quibble. Correct me if I’m wrong.

 

Every album they've ever made has me wanting more haha.

 

I actually think I might agree. Not only is this a really tight and concise record, but I honestly don’t think anything on here is bad at all. Even the opener, which I don’t love, is still a really fun song

 

Looking for Somebody to Love is about the toxic masculine culture that brings about incel/shooter types like Elliot Rodgers who incels worship/refer to as the “supreme gentlemen” which matty directly references with the line “a supreme gentlemen with a gun in his hand looking for somebody to love”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings

here’s a post from Rodger’s where he called himself the supreme gentlemen

https://www.reddit.com/r/niceguys/c...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Matty on the song

“If I’m going to talk about guns, it’s probably good for me to talk about the thing that I probably understand or empathize with the most, which is that the only vocabulary or lexicon that we provide for young boys to assert their dominance in any position is one of such violence and destruction. There’s a line that says, ‘You’ve got to show me how to push/If you don’t want a shove,’ which is me saying we have to try and figure this crisis out because there are so many young men that don’t really have guidance, and a toxic masculinity is inevitable if we don’t address the way we communicate with them”

I find this a super interesting admission from a “1975 lore” perspective given the Robbers video was one of the things that propelled them early on in their career which has matty assert his masculinity with a gun.

it’s classic 1975 for me where you have this update track with these darker lyrics, but I can see why people don’t like it, similar vibe to pumped up kicks which I stopped hearing as a song the same way once I heard the lyrics.

 

the way he opens the song vocally is suuuuuuuper a change of heart

inside your mind and robbers style too

matty in dramatic romantic frontman mode and it owns

 

What’s Antichrist in heh

 

I think this is my favorite album of theirs btw, didn't think anything could surpass ABIIOR for me but man, this is good.

 

remember when weirdos were freaking out because a completely unsubstantiated rumor said this would be called “the problem attic” lmfao

 

felt weird seeing ppl get all sanctimonious about it considering my own “band” name lmao

 

brain worm culture

 

Yours is cleverer

 

This is a massive step up from their last two, it's refreshing for them to release an album that I don't have to go and cut a bunch filler from. After NOACF, I assumed I was done with them but really enjoying this.

that said some of the lyrics on this are fucking awful

 

that's such an exaggeration in my opinion. you may not like the lyrics but they aren't awful by a long shot, again just in my opinion. the writing is clever as fuck and extremely well done just in terms of like...how he's using language to get his points across. i couldn't write lyrics half as good as these, not in a million years. the personal anecdotes, the awkward sexual stuff (yes, matty loves to write about his penis, we know, but its honest), the truly deep feelings of regret, loneliness, as well as love and everything in between, the societal pontificating, it all comes together in a way that i truly feel is the absolute best writing of his career. even on ILIWYS, my favorite album of all time with some of my absolute favorite pieces of writing of any kind across any medium not just music...... pure fucking poetry....... even then i admit some of the stuff on that album isn't entirely on all the time. i think here, he's hitting the mark lyrically every single time. every time. honestly i could probably find a way to justify the quality behind anything you want to throw at me. and i wouldn't have to try very hard at all. take this all with a grain of salt i suppose since i might be the world's biggest 1975 fan boy, and my personal connection to matty's lyrics has been well documented (i would not exist right now if i had never heard "paris" or "give yourself a try" and i am not exaggerating in any way). but that's just how i feel about this record.

 

which i guess brings me to someting i want to say which is that looking for somebody to love's lyrics are absolutely phenomenal. yeah its not an easy subject to listen to a song about, but thats art for me. i think the subject is tackled with eloquence, the quality of the music justifies its existence, and the juxtaposition of the feel of the arrangement and the lyrics is all part of the mssage.

 

Are my ears over-interpolating, or is there a melodic hint of “Is There Somebody Who Can Watch You?” in the guitar-y coda on “The 1975”?

 

i hear it too. there's tons of little musical call backs to their previous stuff. i had already mentioned settle down in oh caroline but thats there too. the bass in about you and the bass in paris are riding a very similar groove, and the little backing synth during the outro of "about you" is nearly identical to the one in "a change of heart." these have to be intentional and im sure theres even more.

 

Lyrics are fantastic on here as usual.

 

new avvy just dropped

 

They haven’t made a record I don’t love

 

a diamond in the rough begets
the diamond with a scruff you get



like cmon man how is he still writing lines like this like its nothing

 

Don’t forget the “heartbeat” in I’m In Love With You, which has the same melody as like four of the songs from the debut