Since their debut self-titled album in 2013, The 1975 have steadfastly refused to confine themselves to a single sound. Their movement across the musical landscape has led the band to stray from indie rock to increasingly experimental new-wave inspired electronic sounds that found success in their second and third studio albums. This musical journey eventually culminated in their 2020 behemoth Notes On A Conditional Form, a disjointed genre-hopping 22-track LP whose attempts to jump between electronic, punk, house, garage and rock left the record feeling messy rather than “avant-garde”. Comparatively, at only 43 minutes long, their fifth studio album, Being Funny in a foreign language, acts as a refreshing counterpoint to the musical excess found in Notes On A Conditional Form. Frontman Matty Healy, who has always used the band as a reflection of his own condition, has stated that while he previously felt pressure to pursue an all-encompassing “Magnum Opus”, Being Funny in A Foreign Language is more akin to a small-scale Polaroid in its musical and lyrical focus. To this end, and with the help of long-time producer Jack Antonoff, the 1975 have produced a stripped-down LP that goes back to the basics of what the 1975 do best: glossy 80’s pop-rock littered with catchy hooks, clever lyricism, and clean real, and sometimes jazzy, instrumentation, resulting in their most succinct and consistent record to date.
As ever, the album’s opening track, titled ‘the 1975’, described by the band as a “status update’” acts as a musical and lyrical waypoint for the rest of the project. This time round, the listener is greeted with the iconic layered piano of LCD Soundsystem’s ‘All My Friends’, whose opening line, “This is how it starts”, was mirrored in the band’s breakout single ‘Sex’ almost 10 years ago. Signalling a return to the musical continuity of their first two albums, Healy’s culturally poignant lyrics depict his struggles with “experiencing life through the postmodern lens”, empathising with the ‘commodified’ youth of today whose existence within the cultural landscape is increasingly defined in relation to political notions of filtered appearances, social media and even wokeness – phenomena that Healy has previously described as “vessels for people to feel better about how shit their life is”. Finishing the song with the repeated “I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re seventeen”, it is this message of empathy in the face of a bleak post-modern existence that sets the tone for the rest of the LP.
This focused approach reveals itself in the lead single ‘Part Of The Band’, a rustic, almost minimalist, folk-rock pop ballad that feels purposefully disjointed. Healy’s plaintive self-analysis surrounding a time when “making an aesthetic out of not doing well”, before declaring “enough about me now!”, “You gotta talk about the people, baby” seems to reflect an ongoing shift in political dialogue from their previous projects. Instead of focusing on Healy’s own introspective understanding of the political condition, Being Funny in a Foreign Language converges on an attempt to understand and relate to the individuals who exist under those conditions. For a band that has often attempted to shroud its messages in ironic, self-reflective and metaphorical layers, Being Funny never feels as if it is trying too hard to hide its core message behind faux-intellectual or pretentious lyricism. In ‘Looking For Somebody (To Love)’ Healy explores the isolation and lovelessness felt by an school shooter to the backdrop of bouncy 80’s Springsteen-esque guitar riffs and sparkling saxophone runs, whereas the beautiful slow jazz-pop number ‘Human Too’ sees a self-reflective Healy ask us to abandon unrealistic standards of perfection. In both tracks, there seems to be a genuine and direct attempt to understand and relate to others for the sake of them being “human too”.
Nowhere is this directness more clear than in the dancey rock-pop anthem ‘I’m In Love With You’. The sequel and spiritual successor to their 2016 melancholic synth-pop ballad ‘A Change of Heart’, it calls back to their 2016 era through its use of sparkly synths and a clean-cut rock pop sound. In writing ‘I’m in Love with You’ Healy revealed his struggle against an instinct to negate or undermine its sentiment, revealing that the “challenge” of the album was to “stop being so cynical. Given that ‘A Change of Heart’ is imbued with rhetorical questions and self-reflective cynicism as it tells the story of falling out of love, it makes sense that ‘I’m In Love with You’ can only succeed in its directness. Having proclaimed ‘sincerity’ to be ‘scary’ four years ago, it seems that Healy has got over his fear, resulting in a refreshing earnestness that permeates this album.
Although, sonically, the 1975 do not break any new ground on this LP, it represents a return to form in their acknowledgement that the proverbial wheel, when correctly used, does not need to be reinvented.
Rating: 8/10