I'm firing up the record player to write about some 7"s from my own collection this week, rather than stealing from my parents again. These 5 singles all come from the back of the alphabetised box, where band names start with numbers rather than letters. That's right, I'm doing The 1975 again... sorry to the thousands of other artists in my collection. Note, I've written about almost all of these songs already in previous entries so check back through for my previous thoughts.
The first thing I want to say about this is that The 1975 have a very distinctive and recognisable style to their artwork, particularly in the early days. This sleeve has their trademark shining white box glowing against a dark background, in this case a roadside garden with trees obscuring one side. It's an image they still project in some form when they play this song live. Fallingforyou comes from the band's 2013 IV EP but this single was released in 2015, probably for the annual London independent record label market that Dirty Hit Records go to with exclusive goodies (I bought this from the band's webstore). It's pressed on clear vinyl which I notice is yellowing despite being kept in a box out of the sunlight.
The song itself is a slow love song with a languid, droning synth, subdued vocals and drums that pulse like a heartbeat. It's simple, heartfelt and dreamy with lyrics like the chorus "and on this night, and in this light (which is etched into the centre of the vinyl) I think I'm falling for you". Even the big passionate moment, "I don't wanna be your friend, I want to kiss your neck", which sounds massive when a whole arena is yelling it back at the stage, sounds almost peaceful on the recording, low down in the mix as if recorded from a distance to keep things hushed. It's just 2 verses and 2 choruses but it delivers romance, hope, peace. Sometimes the mood isn't right for it - you need silence, preferably darkness, and some calm and concentration to devote to it - but when conditions are right, it's hard to beat.
b/w Haunt//Bed 🟢
The b-side comes from the same EP and is a bit more complicated, with electronic loops, duplicated vocals and less straight-forward lyrics which speak of death, mental illness, and the scene of a car accident described almost cinematically in abstract images. The chorus repeats "I'm not scared" to a series of looped beats and simple synth melodies, the layers eventually melting together one at a time to create one big discordant sound at the end. Where Fallingforyou is all about the words, Haunt//Bed is about the music. Songs like this one are a starting point from which you can trace a line to the grander experiments with synthesised dance and ambient sounds on their more recent albums.
The b-side comes from the same EP and is a bit more complicated, with electronic loops, duplicated vocals and less straight-forward lyrics which speak of death, mental illness, and the scene of a car accident described almost cinematically in abstract images. The chorus repeats "I'm not scared" to a series of looped beats and simple synth melodies, the layers eventually melting together one at a time to create one big discordant sound at the end. Where Fallingforyou is all about the words, Haunt//Bed is about the music. Songs like this one are a starting point from which you can trace a line to the grander experiments with synthesised dance and ambient sounds on their more recent albums.
2517 - A Change Of Heart 🔵
Released as a limited-edition single to tie in with a Q Magazine cover about 2016's 'i like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it', this is a piece of single-sided clear vinyl which feels like a wasted opportunity to me. The sleeve is very minimalist too, with the band's logo embossed in white on white card. I'd have put UGH! on the b-side since it already had a music video but didn't get the full single treatment; even an etching on the back would have been better than nothing at all. I've written about the song already - a catty, sarcastic break-up song, slow-paced with some of the band's best synth melodies and most biting lyrics.
Released as a limited-edition single to tie in with a Q Magazine cover about 2016's 'i like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it', this is a piece of single-sided clear vinyl which feels like a wasted opportunity to me. The sleeve is very minimalist too, with the band's logo embossed in white on white card. I'd have put UGH! on the b-side since it already had a music video but didn't get the full single treatment; even an etching on the back would have been better than nothing at all. I've written about the song already - a catty, sarcastic break-up song, slow-paced with some of the band's best synth melodies and most biting lyrics.
2518. Milk 🔵
Another record fair special pressing, this time on milk-bottle white vinyl. Milk is a 2016 pressing of an EP hidden track from 2012 that became a fan favourite live, which I guess is why it was chosen to be issued as a 7". I've written about Milk already and it plays on both sides of this single - again, I'm sure they could have thought of something to put on the b-side. As I said previously, its a fun little song so I can cope with the déja-vu of playing it twice in a row. The Rothko quote etched into the centre is cool, if a little pretentious, but then what are The 1975 if not pretentious?
Another record fair special pressing, this time on milk-bottle white vinyl. Milk is a 2016 pressing of an EP hidden track from 2012 that became a fan favourite live, which I guess is why it was chosen to be issued as a 7". I've written about Milk already and it plays on both sides of this single - again, I'm sure they could have thought of something to put on the b-side. As I said previously, its a fun little song so I can cope with the déja-vu of playing it twice in a row. The Rothko quote etched into the centre is cool, if a little pretentious, but then what are The 1975 if not pretentious?
2519 - Loving Someone 💜
The rainbow sleeve really winds me up - as I said when I wrote about Loving Someone last time, there is one line that you could argue alludes to gay rights in this state-of-the-nation song but was co-opted (more by the band/label than by the fans, I think) as an LGBT anthem. The rainbow capitalism of hoodies with this sleeve printed on the front doesn't sit well with me and makes the lyric about "celebrities lacking in integrity" a bit ironic (I know the band have donated money to LGBT charities which is great but some of their moves feel like missteps). Taking the song as a whole, it's a great exploration of the world's problems pre-Br*xit and Tr*mp - it's so easy to forget that things weren't perfect prior to 2016 - and I love the poem in the middle.
The rainbow sleeve really winds me up - as I said when I wrote about Loving Someone last time, there is one line that you could argue alludes to gay rights in this state-of-the-nation song but was co-opted (more by the band/label than by the fans, I think) as an LGBT anthem. The rainbow capitalism of hoodies with this sleeve printed on the front doesn't sit well with me and makes the lyric about "celebrities lacking in integrity" a bit ironic (I know the band have donated money to LGBT charities which is great but some of their moves feel like missteps). Taking the song as a whole, it's a great exploration of the world's problems pre-Br*xit and Tr*mp - it's so easy to forget that things weren't perfect prior to 2016 - and I love the poem in the middle.
b/w Somebody Else 🔵
Again, I covered this break-up anthem before - it's the sincere brother to A Change Of Heart's wit. The full album version is on here rather than the shorter radio edit, which I would have thought they'd have picked as a 'single'. For some reason, Somebody Else became one of the band's biggest songs, the teen movie soundtrack pick. It's far from my favourite song of theirs (not that there's anything wrong with it but there are at least 20 that I love more) but I guess the lyrics chimed in with 2016's teens more than the ones about fame and cocaine addiction or post-natal depression.
Again, I covered this break-up anthem before - it's the sincere brother to A Change Of Heart's wit. The full album version is on here rather than the shorter radio edit, which I would have thought they'd have picked as a 'single'. For some reason, Somebody Else became one of the band's biggest songs, the teen movie soundtrack pick. It's far from my favourite song of theirs (not that there's anything wrong with it but there are at least 20 that I love more) but I guess the lyrics chimed in with 2016's teens more than the ones about fame and cocaine addiction or post-natal depression.
2520 - Give Yourself A Try 💜
I've gushed about this song twice already and I swear this is the last appearance it makes in my collection so I won't mention it again, but I love this song. The artwork breaks with tradition, switching out the monochrome box for technicolour cubes which match the frenetic energy of both songs on this record. I think this single was another Q Magazine exclusive but they did it right this time with a double a-side - this song about the private and personal, and the other about the public and political.
I've gushed about this song twice already and I swear this is the last appearance it makes in my collection so I won't mention it again, but I love this song. The artwork breaks with tradition, switching out the monochrome box for technicolour cubes which match the frenetic energy of both songs on this record. I think this single was another Q Magazine exclusive but they did it right this time with a double a-side - this song about the private and personal, and the other about the public and political.
AA. Love It If We Made It 💜
Matty Healy left social media in 2020 after trying to make this song into his statement about race and Black Lives Matter in the same way that he made Loving Someone about LGBT issues (i.e. it has one line about suffocating the black man) and people didn't stand for it. I think that says something positive about the progression of society. As a result, this song stands up better than Loving Someone, but I don't know if I can cope with a next instalment about cancel culture and coronavirus.
Aside from the last single, the band aren't great at picking my favourite songs to commit to 7" vinyl, but since all of their songs are good, I can live with that. Aesthetically I prefer the style of the earlier singles but there's still much to love about what they've been putting out more recently.
No comments:
Post a Comment