As music listeners, we generally become quite adept at finding a happy medium between our preconceptions and reality. If a band’s image or general persona doesn’t sit well with us, or comes across as pretentious or cheesy, it will tend to color our view of their music before we’ve heard a single note. And then, once we actually do sit down to listen, many of us will have our suspicions confirmed: said band’s work will be just as pretentious or overdone as we could have imagined, if not worse. This isn’t necessarily confirmation bias, either - after listening to enough music over a long enough period of time, one tends to become proficient in noticing trends and through-lines that run across artists and even genres… “If Artist
X wasn’t to my tastes and shares certain things in common with Artist
Y, I probably will dislike
Y just as strongly as
X.”
Yet this presumptuous attitude can also lead us astray. Take the case of The 1975. Upon first glance, they seem to appropriate all of the most pretentious attributes of indie rock, and apply it to schmaltzy 80’s-worshipping pop. Their fanbase consists largely of tween-agers who have graduated from One Direction and similar fare to “real music”. Their frontman is a child of soap opera stars who has the ridiculous stage presence of a boy band member desperately trying to come across as Morrissey. And their sophomore album is
actually titled (seriously):
I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It. This band not only carries some of the red flags of bad taste; they seem to practically
embody it. And yet The 1975, this very same band, have managed to defy all expectations, and their ludicrously titled album is one of the best and most sonically adventurous of the year thus far.
Like most acute musicians, The 1975 know that the best way to get listeners invested into a work as big and expansive as
I Like It When You Sleep… is to ease them in. Due to this, the record feels naturally divided into a three-part structure, with the first third representing the most familiar territory. Yet even by that metric, “Love Me” and “UGH!” feel remarkably fresh, steering full-throttle into the terrain of David Bowie and INXS in a way the band had only cautiously hinted at before. In many ways, these early tracks set the tone for the rest of the record.
The band’s influences have always spanned across genres and decades, from shimmering pop confections, to pulsating funk, to gospel, to more subtle electronic textures - yet on their self-titled debut, these disparate elements coalesced into a sound that, while cohesive, often seemed to tease a wider sonic palate rather than reveal it outright. In striving to keep a unified tone, the Manchester lads put their sonic exploration into tight confines, and restricted their full potential in the process. Here, their sound explodes outward in every possible direction, and the album’s sprawling 74 minutes cover more ground than any mainstream record you’re likely to find this year. It’s a mess, but a beautiful one.
The second section of the record kicks off in earnest with the gospel-tinged “If I Believe You”. Sounding like a John Mayer track stretched to the outer reaches of space, the song grooves and soothes in equal measure, as lead singer Matt Healy questions whether his lack of faith is also leading to lack of purpose. It’s a compelling change of pace for the usually bouncy group, and following a flugelhorn interlude by D’Angelo collaborator Roy Hargrove, the track begins a slow wind-down as Healy distills the song’s mantra, and that of much of the material that follows, into a single refrain:
“If I'm lost, then how can I find myself?”
Further defying expectations, much of the remaining second third of the record is instrumental, with the soothing piano of “Please Be Naked” immediately followed up by the massive post-rock buildup of “Lostmyhead”. While these extended pieces may leave more impatient listeners rushing for the skip button, they show a mastery of texture and mood unseen among most of The 1975’s contemporaries, who are primarily interested in stuffing as many hooks as possible into their albums’ runtimes. Album standout “Somebody Else” pulses with melancholy as it shifts through its meticulously structured passages, leaving a profound emotional mark, and the multi-faceted title track is a perfect transitional piece for this musical odyssey.
The final third of the record perfectly encapsulates what makes both The 1975, and
I Like It When You Sleep…, so memorable. After a long period of calm reflection, the album kicks back into gear with “The Sound”, the best of the album’s upbeat singles, and easily the one with the most hit potential. The track’s simple refrain and punchy guitars are reminiscent of Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance”, and it has the infectious energy required to be just as ubiquitous.
The 1975’s massive opus takes its time to wind down, with a trio of tracks that gradually decrease in energy: the chill electropop jam “Paris”; the nearly-acoustic ode to Matty’s late grandmother “Nana”; and the fully acoustic “She Lays Down”, a poignant document of Matty’s mother’s depression. This gradual denouement roots the album in family ties, and makes the listener ponder the epic sonic journey they have just undertaken. Not a small feat from the band that until now was mostly known for singing about kids smoking marijuana and first love.
