Recently, genre-defying British band, The 1975, released their fifth studio album: Being Funny in a Foreign Language. It’s a perfect nod to the style of their earlier work, while also looking forward to a happier future. The band’s signature is to start off their albums with a song titled “The 1975.” Being Funny in a Foreign Language contains their best “The 1975” yet. Starting off with a fairly steady strumming beat and vocals in the foreground, the melody builds as the song continues, ending with the phrase “I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re 17” repeating over and over again. The song closes with about a minute of instrumentals, which could have dragged on, but The 1975 manages to hold my attention as I listen, with the music swelling and then getting fainter.

Instrumentals have always been one of their strengths—while the effort they put into their lyricism is incredible, I would argue an equal amount is spent developing the musical aspect of the songs. At the end of the song, the music fades out before seamlessly transitioning into the second track, the more upbeat “Happiness”, which is thematically and musically different. It’s a pretty classic love song: poppy and something you could dance to. This song feels like a callback to the sound of their earlier two albums. In fact, the whole album seems to play a bit on nostalgia for an early 2010s era of the band—a perfect mix of slower, softer songs, and ones that go hard.

While it’s a fantastic album, there are admittedly some questionable elements. Matty Healy, lead singer and lyricist of The 1975, has always been a bit controversial. According to Healy, his song “Looking For Somebody (To Love)” is about a school shooting and his fascination with the phenomenon “as a British person.” There’s also the fact that he describes one of the tracks on the album as him “empathizing with incels.” Sometimes it’s difficult to understand the thought process behind these songs, or where he’s going with them.  

The 1975 has always been a relatively experimental band, which we see clearly in their fourth studio album (Notes on a Conditional Form, 2019) and throughout this most recent release. However, it’s more balanced here and the experimentation more successful. Part of Matty Healy’s signature style is his wordplay, with lyrics that switch rapidly from the absurd to profound. In “The 1975” he has lyrics like “feeling apathetic after scrolling through hell” and “making an aesthetic out of not doing well / mining all the bits of you you think you can sell.” Then, 5 songs later, he’s singing “f*ck it, you muppet.” It makes the album fun and gives it a more lighthearted feel while still talking about some darker topics. This album is, if not lighthearted exactly, then certainly less dark. Healy himself describes the songs as more yearning, though of course some of those cruder lyrics do remain. It’s about the experience of growing and being human in the 21st century, and it’s sad but hopeful.