soundowl

The Bonus Tracks are redundant and pointless.

The main album I enjoy quite a bit despite it's flaws, but when I acquired the album, it was the bonus edition that fell into my lap.

Disc 2 is worthless.

Sorry to be blunt, but it has very very few good songs in it. Some of them are just rough recordings of the album's major hits, some sound like decent enough tunes but the mixing is so bad that it becomes distracting, and the vast majority are sleepy d-sides that are drowning in melatonin.

On top of all of that, there's plenty more of those spacey synth tracks that feel so pointless in keeping in the track list.

I find very little reason at all to put on the bonus tracks, save for the song titled You, that one (not including the hidden track attached to it) is the best original song on the whole thing.

1975 dont know how to craft an album

Notes on a conditional Form from the 1975 is theit newest project, and in typical 1975 fashion it's a long one.

I have quite a bit to say about this one so I'm gonna break it down to three points: The Good, The Bad, and The Issues.

The good:
- This album contains some of The 1975's best songs to date. "If you're too shy let me know", "Guys" and the "You and me together song" are some of their most well-written and well played tracks in a long time.

-"Shy" is everything that makes them good turned up to 11. The guitars are shimmering and clear, with great rhythm and solid playing. The main hook of the song has a wonderful horn section that not only adds to the catchiness, but also gives it an even greater 80's flair than it had previously. The topic of this song is how to address intimacy in the internet age, a topic that 1975 frontman Matthew Healy considers to be really important.

-"guys" is a love song for the friends in one's life. Matt states that "Songs typically sing about romance in relationships but rarely tackle the type of relationship one has with your close friends." It's a really sweet song with dreamy vocals and atmosphere, serving as the album's closer it really does fit in this regard.

- "You and me" is another great song that has a happy and upbeat instrumental combined with actual sunny lyrics and no hint of cynicism or a twist in mood at all. A simple pop rock jam that will definitely make you move your feet.

-"People" is the album's first real track and it's a rager. Loud and abrasive, with shouted vocals and fuzzy guitars and booming drums. It's for all intents and purposes a punk rock song. The song's lyrics reflect this as well as it is about frustration with how society and people in general treat the world around us.

The Bad:

This record suffers from what I think The 1975 are known for doing, and that's packing a ton of musical ideas into one record and not having them connect, or feeling just like scraps or vignettes that don't add to the experience in a meaningful way.

Plenty of songs here such as "Shiny collarbone", "Bagsy not in net", "Having no Head" and "The End" are all instrumental pieces of music usually with house beats and garage samples mixed in. These songs feel like they take up the majority of the record, going one or two tracks like this before arriving at a single ( which have been released prior to the album's drop date). This wouldn't be so much a problem for me if it had a commenting theme or flow but most of the time they just feel like isolated soundscapes.

Reading about this record, it seems like Matt and co took a lot of inspiration from garage and house artists of the past, such as Burial. They talk about how proud of these songs they are and to me it reads as if they really wanted to make a house record. This honestly would be cool if there were more meat on the song's bones and if the surrounding singles had that vibe as well. It all feels very disjointed and scattered.

The Issues:

This record basically proves to me what I had come to theorize with The 1975's creative processes and how they construct an album, and that's that they don't. The band seems to go about creating albums less as an art in and of itself, and more as a vehicle for housing the songs they create. The major lack of a connecting theme or narrative is the major example of this. The opening track is a piece by Greta Thunberg urging the listener to take our environment into consideration and make changes now, and then the song "People" plays right after. This is the only instance where there's a connection thematically to the songs. After this, politics and the environment are not brought up again.. at all. Having this be your opening statement( or thesis) and then have the rest of your project not address it is really confusing to me (on top of basically making the opening track an instant-skip as this adds nothing of musical value to the record).

Conclusion:
If you like The 1975 and their formula for albums, you will definitely enjoy this record. For me, it had good songs, but not good as a whole. It wasn't as exciting, or out-of-left field as some of their other works, and it felt unfinished or unfocused in ways as well. I would certainly check out their singles at least.

I'm feeling a 5/10

Their best album. It's no contest.

I've always enjoyed their singles but the albums are super hit or miss. They're a band that for me, are tough to love. This album made the wait worth it though.

Take all the aspects of their new wave and pop rock influences and craft it into something that's incredibly endearing and charming not only in it's themes, but also in it's flow. Seldom is this record uninteresting, at worst it's a bit predictable, but overall it's so mature and tasteful. Gone is the over-indulgence of Matt's wild experimentations, and here we have focus and tact applied to the band's formula.

As someone who's stuck with this group for about 6 or so years now, this album is so very very welcome.

I'm happiest when I'm doing something that I know is good

"Thank you Kanye, Very Cool"

The 1975's 3rd album is also their first attempt at a concept record. The topic at hand being, relationships of all kinds in the modern era, and humanity's embrace and reliance on technology. Sprinkle in some themes regarding frontman Matthew Healy's heroin addiction experiences, and you have ABIIOR in a nutshell.

At first I thought this record might be their most focused and well put-together projects they've ever done, and I was kind of right. Upon further review however, I found this record to still be majorly flawed and rife with Healy-isms that bring down their projects as a whole for me. Not to say that I think this project is bad per se, but it certainly wasn't the shining jewel that I thought it to be at first.

Let's get my main criticism out of the way right off the bat, there is too much filler. 15 tracks is pretty trim for a 1975 record, but it still takes it's time by having each song go for a bit too long in parts, and having a near 1 hour run time makes this experience a bit of a drag in parts. There aren't nearly as many useless interludes or weird sonic detours this time thankfully. The biggest issue in regards to how bloated this album feels is definitely in the pacing. This has always really been an issue I've had as well. The band's big singles are all fantastic, but you sprinkle in the "Be My Mistake"s, and the "Surrounded by Heads and Bodies"s of the track list, and it feels so sludgy and bogged down by slow intimate moments that kill this album's momentum.

Let's take a break and talk about the singles. The first one being "Give Yourself a Try". This song is pretty good. It's got a noisy and repetitive guitar part, which is supplemented by a snappy rhythm section and underlying bass harmonies. Matty's vocals stand out, as he sings about embracing yourself for yourself and living a little, instead of being stuck inside both physically and metaphorically. "TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME" is a bit more subtle of a single, but is still catchy in it's own right as it discusses the dysfunctionality of technology and interactions with significant others. It's a fine song even if it's not my personal favorite.

"Love it If We Made It" took a while to grow on me, but it's absolutely great. A bit heavy handed on the "World sucks everything is shit" attitude, and some of the modern day references do date it quite a bit, but I felt the hopeful chorus does lift this song's message up and prevent it from being a "woe is me" anthem. The pounding bridge with the touches of saxophone are nice as well.

"Sincerity is Scary" is a bit of an odd song for the group. It's basically pop-gospel and has that breezy urban "maroon 5 Sunday Morning" feel to it. Lyrically it's at odds with the music itself as a toxic relationship is broken down and described in detail. I feel odd about it, and it sticks out in kind of a less than flattering way, but I can see why if someone enjoys this track.

"It' Not Living" is this album's second outright banger of a song, with a catchy as FUCK chorus and that glistening peppy sugary sweet pop-rock production and style that made hits like "The Sound" and "Girls". Lyrically it can be interpreted to be either about a relationship in the sense of romance, the relationship with technology, or in Matty's case (as evidenced by the music video) drugs. It's a pretty great song, popping up this late in the track list is a breath of fresh air.

The final track is my most favorite one, "I Always wanna Die" is a bittersweet ballad. The ghostly chorus and the ethereal instrumental just coalesce into one of their best songs ever, and a perfect bookend to the record. I highly highly suggest this one.

As I alluded to when talking about "It's not living" being a breath of fresh air, this record has pacing issues. A lot of this record is balladry that's either stripped back and acoustic, or dreamy and spaced out, or even done in a lounge-jazz chamber pop kind of way. The experimentation with style and genre is admirable, but makes the meat of this record so drab as an experience. The stretch from "Love it" to "It's Not Living" is a slogggggg. The songs by themselves aren't really that bad either, it's just all coagulated in one massive syrup ball that feels impossible to escape. I feel this also distracts from the narrative that the band is trying to convey.

There are pockets of brilliance in this album, and I do feel like this conceptual project is a pretty good overall listen if you're patient enough. I just can't help but be distracted by the inconsistency in pacing and structure. Oh, and "The Man who Married a Robot" is a terrible song. Instant skip every time it comes on.

"Getting an STD at 27 really isn't the vibe/"

I'm outside lookin' in But if your chance came would you take it?

This record gets it's right.
While not as explosive as their first record, it does offer up some excellent song craft, and a more focused approach that makes the record feel more complete and solid. "Mandy Fly Me" is prog pop perfection, with its many changing pieces, wonderful vocal harmonies and climactic apexes. The opening title track is an instrumental that leads into "Lazy Ways", a rather mellow first tune but one that really satisfies as you can picture yourself lazing away in a sunroom while listening. "I wanna Rule The World" is a bit more like their older material, and definitely the most zany song here. "Iceberg" was funky and a lot of fun to follow along to. I wasn't as into "art for art's sake" or the closing track "don't hang up". These songs left little impression on me and kinda felt undercooked. "Rock n Roll Lullabye" surprised me as I'm not too into Old School rock n roll parodies, but the production bolsters this track very well, and in the end I ended up liking it quite a bit. "Head room" is a very "subtle" innuendo about well... you can figure it out. It's very silly, but pretty much what you would come to expect by now.

Overall to sum it up, this album is good. It's not as exciting as their debut, but it shows the band coming together for one last hurrah of a record. Key members would leave the group after this one, which would kick off the band's mainstream era, and the steady decline in quality, as I've heard. I will be the judge of that. Either way, this album is good and one I would definitely check out.