Listening to the 1975's ambitious, often frustrating third full-length album, 2018's A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships, it's clear that the Manchester outfit is not the same band that delivered their effusive 2013 debut.
They sound somewhat more akin to the band that issued 2016's I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It.
If that album found lead singer Matt Healy pushing the group's emo and post-punk influences ever pop-ward, embracing R&B and adult contemporary stylings, then A Brief Inquiry takes those changes even further.
Some of these tracks, like "TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME" and "Give Yourself a Try," sound like they could be demo recordings -- quickly captured song ideas rife with tinny programmed drums, electric guitars pushed a little too hot into the mix, and Healy's angsty croon buried in a gelatin haze of Auto-Tune.
Elsewhere, they achieve a more grounded sophistication, offering up the sweet '90s R&B groove of "Sincerity Is Scary" and the dewy, jazz trumpet-accented "Mine." That both of these tracks wouldn't sound out of place on a D'Angelo album is a kind of triumph.
"It's Not a Living (If It's Not With You)" comes the closest the sparkling sound of their early hits and goes even further in recreating the sugary Stock, Aitken & Waterman sound of 1989.
Similarly, the gut-wrencher "I Couldn't Be More in Love" is straight-up Phil Collins pastiche.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The 1975 | The 1975 | Play | 01:34 | 3 MB | 7 MB |
| 2 | Give Yourself a Try | The 1975 | Play | 03:16 | 7 MB | 26 MB |
| 3 | TooTimeTooTimeTooTime | The 1975 | Play | 03:27 | 7 MB | 22 MB |
| 4 | How To Draw/Petrichor | The 1975 | Play | 05:49 | 13 MB | 34 MB |
| 5 | Love It if We Made It | The 1975 | Play | 04:12 | 9 MB | 30 MB |
| 6 | Be My Mistake | The 1975 | Play | 04:16 | 9 MB | 25 MB |
| 7 | Sincerity Is Scary | The 1975 | Play | 03:45 | 8 MB | 25 MB |
| 8 | The Man Who Married a Robot/Love Theme | The 1975 | Play | 03:33 | 8 MB | 20 MB |
| 9 | Inside Your Mind | The 1975 | Play | 03:51 | 8 MB | 24 MB |
| 10 | It's Not Living (If It's Not with You) | The 1975 | Play | 04:08 | 9 MB | 31 MB |
| 11 | Surrounded by Heads and Bodies | The 1975 | Play | 03:56 | 9 MB | 22 MB |
| 12 | Mine | The 1975 | Play | 04:06 | 9 MB | 25 MB |
| 13 | I Couldn't Be More in Love | The 1975 | Play | 03:52 | 8 MB | 25 MB |
| 14 | I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes) | The 1975 | Play | 05:14 | 12 MB | 36 MB |
| 15 | I Like America And America Likes Me | The 1975 | Play | 03:26 | 7 MB | 23 MB |
| 58 mins | 134 MB | |||||
| 58 mins | 381 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The 1975 | Primary Artist |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |