The 1975’s 10 Best Songs

Paolo Ragusa
·12 min read

The post The 1975’s 10 Best Songs appeared first on Consequence.

There are British pop rock bands, there are British pop rock bands with charismatic frontmen, and then there’s The 1975. From their inception in the late 2000s, the quartet — comprised of vocalist and songwriter Matty Healy, drummer and producer George Daniel, bassist Ross MacDonald, and guitarist Adam Hahn — have spanned from scrappy funk to post-hardcore, hi-fi pop songs to paranoid New Wave, with songs that can be painfully revealing amidst songs that are jam-packed with jokes and absurdist commentary.

Their 2013 self-titled debut was wildly popular (especially in the Tumblr Era), but the new wave pastiche and occasionally indulgent aura of Matty Healy led to a few detractors — this writer included. At the time, it was hard to understand what was so special about this band, what allowed them to rise so swiftly to the top of the alternative charts besides having a hot British guy singing the songs.

But when the second album was released in 2016, almost ironically titled I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it, for many, perception of the band shifted rapidly. It seemed as if Healy and the band were deliberately playing with my own judgment of them from the first album, as they rattle off a laundry list of criticisms they’ve received in the music video for “The Sound.” Healy knew that people were suspicious of his ego and the fandom that surrounded him, so he includes a song like “Love Me” to both poke fun at the concept and, in his own rambling way, endorse it. And nothing would be the same after “Somebody Else,” a bonafide classic of the digital age and one of the most stunning tracks the band has ever crafted.

When The 1975 returned in 2018 with their third album, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships, fans were eager to see what kind of meta commentary would make its way into it. But once again, any expectation that listeners had for what this album was going to sound like was quickly scrapped; the eclectic mix of songs demonstrated the band at their most free-form and experimental, with high contrasts and remarkably urgent songwriting. As we collectively began to process “Love It If We Made It,” the album’s triumphant, achingly relevant centerpiece, it was clear to see: The 1975 is, in fact, a special band.

They followed up A Brief Inquiry… with the similarly complex Notes on a Conditional Form in 2020. Though it featured more genre experiments and a 22 song track list, Notes also found the band exploring a quieter, more subtle approach — an attitude that characterizes the majority of songs on their new album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, out this Friday, October 14th.

Being Funny… is less of a statement piece than any 1975 album before it, and yet, it’s one of their best albums yet. There are tracks that signal a return to the shiny New Wave sound from their first two records, while also featuring some mediative folk-adjacent tracks that find Healy being deeply sincere. It’s refreshing and fun, and serves as a wonderful reminder of what these four are capable of.

Ahead of the release of Being Funny in a Foreign Language, here’s our list of The 1975’s 10 best songs. Scroll to the end for a playlist of all 10 tracks.

— Paolo Ragusa
Editorial Coordinator

Ed. note: You can catch The 1975 on tour this year. Grab tickets here.

10. “Me & You Together Song”

While The 1975 have become more experimental with their use of synthesizers and electronics, this track off 2020’s Notes on a Conditional Form feels like a throwback to the springy guitar pop of the band’s early days. There’s yearning (“I’ve been in love with her for ages/ And I can’t seem to get it right”) and a direct reference to Matty Healy’s sexuality (“I’m sorry that I’m kinda queer/ It’s not as weird as it appears/ It’s ’cause my body doesn’t stop me/ Oh, it’s okay, lots of people think I’m gay/ But we’re friends, so it’s cool, why would it not be?), turning a catchy tune into something deeper and more personal.

— Spencer Dukoff

09. “Happiness”

Amidst many infectious moments from The 1975, Being Funny in a Foreign Language standout “Happiness” belongs to bassist Ross MacDonald. His bouncy bassline guides the track entirely, carefully picking moments to deviate from the repetitive line and interlocking with George Daniel and Adam Hahn in a dazzling way. It’s one of the grooviest experiments the band has ever pulled off, and rather than meet the other three members with an equally rollicking vocal performance, Healy is much more tender, sincere, and restrained on “Happiness.” It’s the sound of a band coming into their own in real time, and focusing on the freeing potential of their wildly impressive musicianship.

— P.R.

08. “Chocolate”

As one of their first songs to receive considerable radio support, “Chocolate” off the Music for Cars EP (and later the self-titled debut LP) served as an introduction for many listeners to The 1975. Real heads know that “chocolate” is actually a euphemism for marijuana, but the song more broadly captures youth in rebellion. It’s major-key sweet, with Matty Healy singing about “guns hidden under our petticoats” over an ebullient guitar riff and a tight, syncopated beat propelled by drummer George Daniel and bassist Ross MacDonald. It’s a showcase for one of the things The 1975 does best: pairing darker lyrics with a brighter soundtrack, and leaning into the friction that comes from such contrast.

— S.D.

07. “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)”

When someone who is much cooler than you in your life — picture the girl on Tumblr that everyone wanted to be — sends you a playlist introducing you to The 1975, you take a listen. And maybe you have a long road trip, and end up listening through the playlist in its entirety as you drive, and then find yourself reeling from the feeling the music is providing, and then send said cool girl an extremely detailed voice memo about how “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)” is giving you a sense of nostalgia for experiences you’ve never even had before. Hypothetically.

There’s freedom and ease in the track off the group’s third album, the gospel-like vocals and touches of synths evoking a reckless, 1980s energy. There’s something undeniably fun about hyperbole when used well — with this song, the band took the age-old adage of, “I’d rather die than live without you,” and turned it happily on its head.

— Mary Siroky

06. “Frail State of Mind”

Notes on a Conditional Form standout “Frail State of Mind” is the sound of Matty Healy turning inward, and one of his most considerate efforts to communicate his struggles with mental health. Over a hazy garage beat, Healy attempts to process both his own inability to deal with his sensitivity and the way that this closing off affects the people around him. “You guys go do your thing/ And I’ll just leave at nine/ Don’t want to bore you with my frail state of mind,” he sings in the final verse, before revealing a harsh truth from his peers: “You know that we’ll leave if you keep lying/ Don’t lie behind your (frail state of mind).”

The tension that Healy explores between wanting pity and validation from others and the way he uses his sensitive state of mind as a defense mechanism to avoid being vulnerable is fascinating and bold. It’s one of the band’s most thoughtful and nuanced songs, and it plays with Healy’s oft-used “Us, Them, and Me” theme in a really dynamic way.

— P.R.

05. “TooTimeTooTimeTooTime”

The 1975 have always boasted their ability to write dynamic pop songs, but A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships cut “TooTimeTooTimeTooTime” is one of their greatest pop experiments to date. Written with Dirty Hit labelmate No Rome, “TooTimeTooTimeTooTime” is a wonderful exploration of Matty Healy’s self-deprecating persona, a cheeky attempt to describe his doomed relationships and frequent infidelity. The song is built over a buoyant dancehall groove, slick percussion, and a purely digitized backing track that supports Healy’s AutoTuned crooning perfectly. But it’s also, frankly, hilarious — as Healy slyly sings, “I only called her one time/ Maybe it was two times/ Must be more than three times/ Can’t be more than four times,” you can’t help but smile and bop along.

— P.R.

04. “The Sound”

Matty Healy has perfected the art of creating euphoric-sounding, ‘80s-inspired synth-pop love songs that are actually a mask for his own insecurities. “The Sound,” taken from their the band’s second album I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it, juxtaposes the feeling of that intoxicating high when first meeting someone, and struggling with that looming doubt of how it’s all going to inevitably fall apart anyway — regardless of how well you’ve memorized the sound of that person’s heartbeat. Healy references not one, but two Greek philosophers in this song (Epicurus and Socrates, what’s up?), and only he can come up with this gem of a lyric: “You’re so conceited, I said ‘I love you’/ what does it matter if I lie to you?” Because by the time you think you’ve fallen in love with him, he’s already on to the next one.

— Cady Siregar

03. “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)”

The 1975 go full Oasis on “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes),” another standout from A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships, but the song’s power comes from how it truly sets the band free. Healy is an expert at skirting around being truly vulnerable and sincere by frequently loading his phrases with jokes, self-deprecating remarks, and contradictions; “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)” may have a brilliant contradiction at the center, but there’s an opening that occurs when Healy launches into the chorus, carefully crooning in a full-hearted falsetto and letting the band’s dialed-up Britpop take him in their tides. The song feels like one of Healy’s personal theses, an honest and vulnerable statement devoid of tension or hostility, and a song that captures the band at their blissed-out, alternative rock peak.

— P.R.

02. “Somebody Else”

When The 1975 released the followup to their breakout self-titled debut, fans everywhere let out a collective “…what?” In addition to being a mouthful, I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it seemed like a far cry from the moody mumblings of its predecessor. It was brighter. Poppier. Pinker! And it came with a title that at best could be described as sentimental, and at worst, as a pretentious Tumblr post emblematic of the time. (Yes, we know that’s our third mention of the T-word on this list.)

Once the initial shock wore off, it became clear that I like it when you sleep… was not a cringey grab at the “nice guy,” but rather a meditation on the fraught bonds of human connection in the digital age, best exemplified on the single “Somebody Else.” Sincere in its sentiments — which teeter between saccharine wistfulness and melancholic resignation — “Somebody Else” taps into the pain of not being ready to move on even as the relationship is long over.

“I don’t want your body but I hate to think about you with somebody else,” Matty Healy sings on the chorus. It is not selfish so much as it is honest — when somebody you loved has already begun to love somebody else, where does that leave you in terms of sorting through the aftermath of the relationship?

A song to play whether you’re getting out of a long-term relationship or moping over the Tinder date who ghosted you, “Somebody Else” taps into the stinging feeling that comes with realizing while maybe you weren’t right for each other, you were, at some point, something.

— Maura Fallon

01. “Love It If We Made It”

To this day, The 1975 have never sounded so vital as they do here. Forget the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” comparisons; “Love It If We Made It” is the product of a decade on social media, drugs, news headlines, existential dread, and an acute sense of paranoia that only The 1975 can capture. If you, like many, had shrugged off the pop-forward stylings of The 1975, then “Love It If We Made It” is the band telling you, “Get a load of this one!”

Each turbo-charged stanza becomes more dystopian and alarming than the last, with Matty Healy yelping out worrying headlines and eerie social trends like the megaphone he’s screaming into is no longer functional. The song pounds, thrashes, and bellows, before collapsing into a typical George Daniel dance groove, breaking up the downbeat emphasis into something more vibrant and colorful. It arrives at the perfect time — as Healy escalates the tension to a breaking point, he concludes with the hopeful request, “And I’d love it if we made it.” It’s a profound statement in and of itself; Healy spells out a laundry list of our generation’s anxieties, disappointments, and deep-seated fears, only to remark that he still feels belief in our collective power to survive it.

And how about that laundry list? The transition in the third verse from “Immigration, liberal kitsch/ Kneeling on a pitch/ I moved on her like a bitch” is goosebump inducing, with Healy spitting Trump’s words with fury and bewilderment. At the top of his range, Healy’s desperation is so palpable and moving that you immediately feel the disappointment and terror baked into his frantic barking.

“Love It If We Made It” is undoubtedly the song that cemented The 1975 as an important band of our times, because it’s rare these days to see a band so perfectly encapsulate a generation’s anger and apathy all in one song. It is The 1975’s masterpiece, and a song that looms large as they forge their ongoing legacy as one of the 21st century’s biggest rock bands. And with each dystopian headline that has followed since the song’s release in 2018, it’s hard not to take Healy’s defiant statement to heart: I’d love it if we made it.

— P.R.

The 1975’s 10 Best Songs Playlist:

The 1975’s 10 Best Songs
Paolo Ragusa

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