The 1975 - A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (November 30, 2018) Album • Page 366

I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes) is amazing. The whole album is beautiful, there aren’t really any songs I can’t say I don’t like. Still needed at least 1 more banger. GYAT and Its Not Living are still my favorites, along with Always Wanna Die. The Petrichor half of How To Draw, Inside Your Mind, I Like America, and Couldn’t Be More In Love were the other ones that really grabbed me. I’ll need a few more listens to let it all sink in.

The Man Who Married A Robot made me LOL a few times. I didn’t mind it, just such an unusual track haha.

 

"If you can't survive, just try"

 

i cant wait til my mom hears this

 

My thoughts:
Overall, I’m pretty stunned and this is immediately my favorite album. I love how they blend the fun, catchy immediacy of the self titled with the more experimental, spaced out sound of ILIWYS. I think this record is going to do a lot of great things for them and it just further cemented my love for this band.

Top 5:
How to Draw / Petrichor
Be My Mistake
It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)
Give Yourself a Try
I Like America and America Likes Me

 

im starting back over with my gf now

 

First listen impression is that this has some phenomenal music on it. It’s also their weakest album from a per-song standpoint.

The singles are all great, maybe as good as or better than anything else in their discography, and 13-15 is a great run on the back end. They make a lot of incredible sounds and push them in really cool directions, but I can’t help but wish they wrote fuller songs. A lot of the stuff in the middle feels like ambient sketching.

 

Mhm. Yup. It's as great as I imagined it would be.

Instant classic.

 

I’m waiting until Friday so I can go pick this up at my favourite record shop and have my first playthrough the way the music gods intended... on vinyl and through incredibly expensive headphones. I’m jealous of you all and I greatly appreciate your commentary in this time of need.

 

While I don't agree with everything you said - this is me right now for the most part.

Can we get the lyrics to the end of Petrichor?

 

Full First Thoughts/Impressions from a few days ago:

Don’t read this if you don’t want to have anything spoiled.

The 1975: They opener is thrown through the electronic blender this time. There’s lots of pitch correction and electronic drums. I love how they continue to use this song to set the mood of the album right away. Unique and yet familiar.

Give Yourself a Try: I tried not to overplay any of the singles because I wanted to hear the entire album at once. That’s hard when so many songs get released, and I desperately want to listen to them, so my concession was only to listen a couple times so that I wouldn’t wear them out. The guitar in this mix is not as prominent as I remember, but damn do I love the song all the same.

TOOTIMETOOTIME: Insanely catchy. This one does a great job of anchoring the first part of the album with a little levity. It’s needed. It keeps the record from feeling too slow.

How to Draw/Perichor: This is an odd one, it acts somewhat as an interlude, to break up the album’s sections, but I think it would have worked better after the next song. It feels like you’re just starting to get going, and then this 6-minute track slows things down a little. There are lyrics, but the vast majority of the song has a glitchy, stuttery, electronic vibe to it. The back half of the song picks up and gets a little dancy, which is cool. It’s very creative, and unlike anything this band’s peers would attempt.

Love It If We Made It: Probably my favorite song on the album. I loved it from the first play, and it just keeps getting better. It mixes everything I like about this band together and feels like the song of 2018 to me. It's great. It also makes me wish this theme, or feel, or sound ... was found a few more places on the album. My two expectations going into this album were that I’d be able to see where the Music For Cars stuff was, and that we’d get more in that vein, and that would mix in with this sort of sound/song. Neither of those ended up panning out.

Be My Mistake: My least favorite song by far. It’s a soft acoustic track with lyrics I find silly and a theme I don’t care to hear songs about anymore. The music’s not interesting enough to carry me through, and the lyrics contain multiple “wtf” moments. It’s pretty, it’s well sung, but it’s a song I’d have left off the album.

Sincerity is Scary: The video took this song to a new level for me. I think it plays a little like this album’s “Change of Heart.” I love the instruments and general feeling this song gives off.

I Like America & America Likes Me: This one’s a little out there. It’s three and a half minutes of layers, auto-tune, and pitch throwing vocals. It’s very Bon Iver 22, a Million with a nice beat. It’s up there with my favorites. I love the part where he repeats, “would you please listen...” and the vocals are stacked all over each other. It’s very creative. Heh, it could become a fan favorite, or it’s going to be this album’s version of “Young & Menace.” This is kinda what I expected more of the album to be like when I think of “Head.Cars.Bending,” and the band utilizing electronics into their music ... this is a natural conclusion.

The Man Who Married a Robot: I was expected the female, American, version of Siri to read this little story. But it’s the male British version. (Unless they change it by region, but the version I have is a version of Siri I’ve never heard before.) It’s literally just the robot reading a weird story about a dude, and the internet, and ... yeah. That’s it. I see no reason not to skip it after you’ve heard it a couple of times. Once you get what they’re going for with the story, and how it plays into the other songs, you can save those almost four minutes.

Inside Your Mind: Huge piano ballad. It’s gorgeous, and Matty sounds fantastic. The lyrics are a little strange, but the crooning is next level. I love the orchestral build in the background with the distortion. “I can show you photographs of you getting on with life ...”

It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You): This song’s placement feels a little off to me as well, only because it kind of breaks up where the back half of this album is going and the pacing it sets for itself. Still, an excellent song and I’m glad I only played it once or twice before hearing the full album.

Surrounded by Heads and Bodies: Another soft, slow, song. Acoustic guitar picking and lots of vocal harmonies. The kind of song you’ll love to listen to late at night. There’s no “Paris” on this album, but this may be the closest we get. I think there’s like 11 lines total in this song, and three of them are the word “Angela.” It works.

Mine: This is the slow jazz tune talked about in interviews/reviews. I’m shocked that it works. But it sounds like Matty is stuck in La La Land with a stiff drink and a piano. Absolutely love the lyrics:

I fight crime online sometimes
Then write rhymes I hide behind
My switch, her wine, both crying
I’m fine if you are fine
Looking back on 2009
People said that it was raining all the time
I see sunshine, because I know that you were mine

The back of the album is very moody, slow, and feels very different than what they’ve done in the past. I really can appreciate that. When we get the brass section here, the little flourishes on the drums, and the very distinct piano, it works surprisingly well.

I Couldn’t Be More In Love: Top tier from the album and heartbreakingly relatable. That synth is god damn beautiful. It’s a slow ballad that builds into this Phil Collins-like chorus. The way Matty’s voice almost cracks when he sings, “what about these feelings I’ve got...” is incredible. It’s about now that I always realize how soft and slow the back part of this album is. Music for crying into your wine.

I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes): Their best closer. That falsetto in the chorus gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it.

The parts of my album thoughts I haven't yet worked out, yet, are how I think the album works as a whole piece, how I feel the themes work together or are tied together, and where the songs will end up ranking with the rest of their discography in time. There’s only one song on the entire album I don’t love, and then I can do without the Man/Robot song. I get some of the Radiohead comparisons, but honestly, I think Phil Collins and Bon Iver work as better comps. The weird glitchy electronic stuff isn’t as prevalent as the soft strums and mood created later, and more often IMO, on in the album.

Overarching thought: They did it again. They’ve got an insane amount of music, and almost all of it is at the level of “holy fucking shit” for me. From the EPs, through the two albums, and now this. They’ve hit the rare spot where they make other music sound worse. They make me not want to listen to anything else. I want to reach for this album and nothing else. I want to immerse myself in it. I want to overplay it, and then go back to their past albums, dance, tap my toe, and then dive right back into this one again. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say this is one of the best bands making music right now. They combine creativity, emotion, and melody in a way that works for me. I’ve said it before, but I want to thank this band for showing me that music can still get to me. That I can still love new music at the ripe-old-age of 35.

 

this is not even close to their weakest album imo but bringing up their other albums in any context after a handful of listens is useless

 

This whole thing is fucking beautiful and insane

 

It's a dark twisted fantasy!

 

The closing track made me think of Death In The Snow by Owel

 

Yeah this whole album is so hard to compare. Like to me, it is defined by the opposite moments as on ILIWYS, which was an 80s rock pop homage with some atmosphere thrown in, and this is a very atmospheric and poignant record, with some levity placed in

 

Well, I said it was a first listen impression. The album’s definitely great, it’ll probably end up top of the year for me once I give it another hundred listens.

I brought up their previous albums not based on whether I like this more than those, but as a way to give context to how I was feeling about the “fullness” of the songs. While their debut saved its instrumentals for brief interludes and ILIWYS blew out the middle of the record with a couple large soundscapes, this one makes freeflowing atmospherics an everpresent part of the record’s journey. That’s awesome and I’m down for it and it sounds impeccable, but you’re not going to see me put those tracks on my list of favorite 1975 songs because that’s just not the type of listener I am.

 

i still cant believe petrichor

 

What @Jason Tate said above about Give Yourself a Try.

I don't know if I got used to the guitars, but they seemed less jarring in the final mix. Are we going crazy or are we just old?

 

im probably gonna have this whole album memorized by friday

 

Petrichor - I am so happy I’ve been listening to electronic music much more this year. For those not privy to the genre, this song is very very impressive

Reminds me of burial and Jon Hopkins a bit

But the part when Matty comes in is beyond 1975 that it’s so far in the stratosphere

 

The guitar in GYAT became less and less "jarring" every time I listened to it. After the first 10 listens, it just felt so normal to me. 100 listens later, I can't tell if it's actually different, because I feel like it normalized in my head long ago.

 

p o i s o n
m e
d
a
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fav songs after 1.5 listens:
give yourself a try
petrichor
love it if we made it
inside your mind
its not living if its not with you
mine
i couldnt be more in love
i always wanna die sometimes


i love every song on this those are just the ones im instantly drawn at first glance

 

I'm never going to be over the 'would you please listen?' parts of I Like America.

 

Honestly, and I think I’m confident about this, but this is a monumental moment.