Being Funny in a Foreign Language is perhaps The 1975’s best album to date. If his first releases ranked him among the best indie pop bands, this one gives him his letters of nobility.
Posted yesterday at 7:00 p.m.
The band from Manchester will soon be celebrating the tenth anniversary of their homonymous album, a delightful first effort that we still listen to today with genuine pleasure. Ten years of catchy pop rock songs, melodious ballads and a few less successful attempts. After a test as disjointed as it is irresistible in 2020 (Notes on a Conditional Form), The 1975 tightens its approach to offer a work that bears witness to a superb evolution.
On the piece The 1975 (each album, except the last, begins with a piece titled thus, as a presentation of the new era that the disc brings), resolutely biographical and political at the same time, Healy sings in a voice so modified that it does not looks more like his. He observes the world, deplores it, something he has been doing since the beginning of the group. The theme is dark, the musical coating too. And then, Happiness begins, on a danceable rhythm, close to disco. The saxophone embarks over the groove installed by the bass, launches into a crazy flight at the very end of the song. The refrain is destined to remain etched in our minds. Five minutes of listening later, we are thrilled.
This is The 1975 touch. This way of presenting songs that are fun and danceable, deeply thought out or ingeniously simple lyrically, but always catchy, this constant reference to the rhythms of the 1980s. Matt Healy and his cronies have developed world of great pop compositions. Being Funny… is one of their most successful albums, but it is also their most accomplished record. No lack of cohesion on the horizon, whereas it was sometimes the case on previous opuses.
Only the main song and first single from the disc, Part of the Band, stands out from the rest, with its folk-rock tones. With all the sarcasm and cynicism that we know him, Healy talks about his addiction, his sexuality, questions himself, tells a parallel story that does not belong to him. Part of the Band is a fine example of the prowess of the pen of the leader of The 1975 on this disc, the best written of his repertoire.
Director BJ Burton, who worked on the incredible 22, A Million, of Bon Iver, took part in the creation of the disc at the beginning, before withdrawing when the group joined forces with the fabulous Jack Antonoff. He eventually produced the entire album, along with Healy and the band’s drummer, George Daniel. The result is great.
Pop
Being Funny in a Foreign Language
The 1975
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