It’s proof of The 1975’s ability to simultaneously explore the leftfield while delivering giant pop bangers and resulted in the band’s highest chart position to date.Įarly in the process of making NOACF, Matty spoke about the album being all about the now – about art that reflects the world and the band at the point of creation.
The most recent, If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) takes things back almost to the source of The 1975 – a John Hughes movie bop with glimmering electronic glisses and cavernous ‘80s chords, but paired with a modern tale of lust-via-webcam and a minimalist, monochrome video. Each has been a complete shift, not just musically, ranging from UK garage to electronica to indie-pop, but lyrically and even image-wise: the anarcho-punks amid the chaos in the People video are the Blur-wannabe indie-pop kids in the Me & You Together Song video are the CGI avatars in the video for the dreamy The Birthday Party. Seamlessly bridging the gap between A Brief Inquiry and Notes On A Conditional Form, The 1975 have continually released music in the run-up to the album release. I don't have a playlist of one type of music, so I don't consume music like that, and when I'm inspired it'll never happen twice in one genre.” “And I think that Notes is an interesting record, because it has our most aggressive moments and our most tranquil moments and they're quite harshly lined up against each other. “Every time I do a 1975 record, I kind of just go through my catalogue of music, the mental rolodex,” says Matty.
Frontman Matty Healy and co-songwriter George Daniel, bassist Ross MacDonald and guitarist Adam Hann formed the group 17 years ago as childhood friends in Wilmslow and Notes On A Conditional Form is another landmark statement in a career full of them. It is the follow-up to 2018’s A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, the record that marked The 1975 out not just as the band of their generation, but as a band for the ages too. The 1975’s fourth album Notes On A Conditional Form is out today through Dirty Hit.