4/5 Stars
Waves to Watch: The Sound, UGH!
Genre: Smart synthpop
Goes great with: The Japanese House, Sir Sly, M83
Somebody had to make pop music a little more sad again. And even if they had to swap their black and white schtick for a more pastel one, The 1975 have done it - triumphantly.
It's been two and a half years since the Manchester four-piece released their eponymous debut, a 16-song flurry of heady and philosophical quips by singer Matty Healy. With hazy white neon boxes swinging behind their live sets, the band seemed to have created an insuperable identity for their themselves.
But two and a half years is a long time, enough to plan and reimagine. I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it (Dirty Hit/Interscope) is a product of this painted renewal that sparks a new appreciation for the mouthy Healy and his clever counterparts, while still making the young girls scream.
Healy once expressed fear of his relationship with his fans, saying, "the terrifying thing is that I can't tell if I'm killing them or saving them." The girls line up, often overnight, to profess their love or take a quick photograph - or 20 - of the shirtless Healy. There's an earnest, almost cutthroat, power in a fangirl, like she knows the trend and sticks with it. And The 1975 are still the trend. Brighter, yes, but maybe bruised knees and empty stares are so 2013.
After a quick deletion of social media, which sent the alternative music world into a tailspin for a few days, the band popped back onto the scene, first with color, later with the first single of the new era: "Love Me". The song was a new carefree world, one where it was obvious that The 1975 had put the need to be cool on the back burner.
The video for "Love Me", is filled with celebrity cutouts, champagne, and cerulean eyeshadow. Guitarist Adam Hann's riff is an obvious, but intelligent, ripoff of the late Bowie's "Fame". The song is a humanist comment on fame itself and the self-indulgent, consumerist nature of today with lines like "caught up in fashion, Karcrashian panache".
Here, the band is like a swifter reincarnation of INXS with the best of new wave whines in tow. "UGH!" is again about self-indulgence ("But I'm goin' wait until you finish, so I can talk some more") with a dazzling taste of cocaine ("It's just a simple diuretic that prevents the empathetic from being just and giving it up"). With "UGH!", Healy departs his pouty, artist vision and learned to dance a little bit.
Slower songs like "Please Be Naked" and "Somebody Else" show the more physical - not just metaphysical - side of the band. The latter, which spans nearly six minutes, is still evocative of the ethereal noise on their self-titled. Yet the band isn't living just in its head anymore; it's learning to consume others. The song is selfish ("I don't want your body/But I hate to think about you with somebody else") with a projection of Healy's neuroses ("Got someone you love/Got someone you need/Fuck that, get money").
I like it when you sleep... is more of a reinvention than a linear shift in vision. The opening track, "The 1975" is the same song as the opening track of the same name on their debut, yet this time, it is more of a fanfare than a dour invitation.
Somehow, out of a pure desire to push pop music further than it can - or even should -go, The 1975 have fabricated an album that balances texture and anachronistic sentiments. ""Change of Heart" is like a softer personification of Pat Benatar, and "This Must Be My Dream" is a shadowy take on The Police.
Few albums extend over an hour in the era of singles and iTunes shuffle, but I like it when you sleep... clocks in over 75 minutes without being too mundanely narcissistic. But Healy maintains his ironic self-indulgent persona, flopping his hair and crying out, "Don't fall in love with the moment and think you're in love with the girl" in "She's American". In the same song, he foreshadows his own fears of a crumbling image ("Look!/He's having a breakdown") and the warnings that follow around a childish affair ("But be careful or you'll drown/You think you've got it figured out").
The band's stake in R&B influences remains steadfast, even though rooting back to smooth and hedoninc rhythms has become pop's latest fixation. "Loving Somone" and "If I Believe You" are the more earnest responses to manufactured morsels by Max Martin's formulas of music. The songs' lyrics, like "Keep hold of their necks and keep selling them sex/It's better if we keep them perplexed" are much less sensual and more about the lack of sincere revelations in society.
One of the albums strongest tracks, "The Sound" is a gospel-backed poke at themselves and their critics. The video flashes phrases like "ridiculous contrived knockoffs" and "vapid derivative pop". But there is soul in these jibes and soul in the band, a certain rejuvenation of an old soul in leather pants.
For now, Healy wants to keep things all about him yet never about him. And maybe this is the trend that will continue to make all of the girls scream. But for now, The 1975 are just looking to elbow pop in the direction they want it to go because if nobody else is doing it, they might as well.
I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it is available worldwide now on Dirty Hit/Interscope Records on iTunes/CD/Vinyl. The 1975 is heading out on a worldwide tour in support of the album, starting in March.
//Angelia//
