A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

I like this album better than their other music. The individual songs are ok, but the varied collection of styles makes the album less cohesive.

The 1975 aren’t good enough to be so controversial. Discuss.

It's funny how after all the innovative, challenging albums I've gotten to hear during this whole project, it's this album that was like eating glass for me. Grating on the ears and lacking in any real substance. We've all heard worse, but this was not fun at all.

Absolute pish, from a band who should be nowhere near headline festival slots (but somehow topped the bill a few times) or, ideally, the charts. Terrible vocals, clichéd lyrics, musically boring, and way, way, way too long. There's far better records than this missing from the book; why not auggest one of them instead?!

The 1975 is like the emo bands of the 2000s. If you grew up with it you may enjoy it but if it wasn’t your time then they seem like a bunch of weirdos. Mix that in either the popular electronic auto tune sounds of the late 2010s and that’s pretty much this album. A tough one to get through as it all felt really lame or I’m just getting old. 4.4/10

I keep thinking I need to check out more of The 1975 after enjoying the other selection on this list. This was different in many ways, but still beautifully crafted pop. There are some unique songs (one recited by Siri!). No doubt I’m stating what so many others have when I declare that “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)” is probably the catchiest song to address heroin addiction imaginable. Terrific song! I can’t stop listening to it!

A brief inquiry of why was I ambivalent on this album?

No idea what this could be. Can't wait to be amazed.... Ok it was just gay hipster pop. I turned it off after 8 songs. It didn't change tack or anything, I got the full experience. 2/5.

This is the 2nd 1975 LP added to the list and that's about two too many. This band seems to exclusively produce maximalist corporate slop, producing tracks that throw every idea they have at the wall in an attempt to make something coherent. Add in every song being mixed within an inch of its life to give it that sterile Top 40 gloss perfect for coffee shops or Urban Outfitters, and this just isn't a genuine artistic effort all. Final obligatory mention that Healy is a creep to boot!

I love The 1975 and even if it's all sort of samey in the end, it's a delightful, electric, and ethereal samey.

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Love it if we made it, Inside your mind, It’s not living (if it’s not with you), I couldn’t be more in love

I don't know what to say here. This album often had really cool stuff, then it would fade into the background, and the next time it jumped to my attention, it would sound like a completely different album. I liked everything I heard overall, but I have not earthly idea how I would describe this if someone asked me. However, genre certainly isn't everything, especially when a work is well-executed. I don't have to know how to describe something to like it 4/5

Hmm... where do I stand on this album? I like The 1975 and I saw there is their most recent album on the list, but this album just has never clicked for me. It feels a little too disjointed. It just doesn't have the punch that I like from their others. Also it's a little too long. Maybe cutting 10 minutes would make it better? We don't need the random robot song for example. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 4/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Slight no.

I like The 1975 and I like this album, but I'm sad I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. I honestly thought I was going to be blown away. "Sincerity Is Scary" is a great track as is "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)". "I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)" is a great exit track. There are some songs in the middle that are not as well placed for this album, such as "The Man Who Married a Robot / Love Theme" and "Inside Your Mind". Even "TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME" is mediocre. I think I prefer their debut album, but overall this one is enjoyable. It's a very high 3/low 4, it doesn't feel right giving a 3.

September 9, 2025 HL: "How to Draw/Petrichor", "Love It If We Made It", "Sincerity is Scary", "It's Not Living (If It's Not with You)" "I Like America"- can't relate. "I'm afraid of dying/ It's fine"- can relate. Despite the experimental tag on Wikipedia, "It's Not Living" and "Love It If We Made It" sound like what I expect the 1975 to sound like. (I've only heard Being Funny in a Foreign Language and the odd single from their first two albums) "Eschewing the 1980s-influenced sound of its predecessor"- stop the cap. "I Couldn't Be More in Love" was ghostwritten by Mick Hucknall, I just know it Well, I happen to really like how this record sounds, so I guess it's forgiven. Also props to the 1975 to making what sounds like a COVID record over a year in advance. Not that the Internet and social isolation weren't hot topics before 2020, but damn. I feel like I appreciate 22, A Million more now for keeping and staying off the rails

I like the fact that I’m finding out that I’ve no idea what The 1975 sound like. Lots going on here and I enjoy most of it, but I guess the unpredictably is my favourite part.

Experimental, electronic, rock, pop. Curioso. Menos la primera canción, el resto está chulo.

A proper album that works as a whole piece.

Upbeat, frolicsome high-energy and youthful. Generally likable if callow (though it's wise to observe sincerity's scariness – one couldn't agree more). Of the moment in its open and unapologetic uber-poppiness, but also brings some intense and (somewhat) edgy rock energy. Healy seems a midpoint between Jamie Cullum and Harry Styles, on the coolness continuum anyway. One could do without the vocoder / auto-tune, of course (especially on the opener where it gives a bad taste right out of the gate). And it's def too long (or maybe they're just paying homage to their musical heroes from the 1990s). The album and song titles (and cover) are all pluses. In terms of list proper, certainly it could replace Hookworms and Christine and Queens from class of '18. Still decent listen from a band one might be inclined to spend more time with – so thanks recommender. Rounding up because all young bands should be this excessive, so shambolically all over the place.

I liked their early stuff a lot and was disappointed with the second album but this is good enough for four stars.

I didn't like this as much as the band's prior entry I heard on the list (which was a couple albums further along in their discography). I thought this less clever and less experimental than it appears to find itself, and have zero appetite for rockstar junkie shit - which it sounds like the lead singer was starting to eschew in this album's era. To the benefit of the music it appears to me. Aside from that it's serviceable post-modern rock.

Whatever

Experimental, electronic, rock, pop. Ni fu ni fa.

Some high points, and a lot of average pop

If you like the 1975 that’s good for you

Love this album. But somehow not really. I don't understand it. I really want to love it, but it feels so simple. 3

It's alright. Don't love the autotuning that appears on some of the songs. 3 stars.

Okay-ish. But would not be a go-to to listen again

They can definitely do the lighter peppy pop alternative and do a pretty decent job of that... TOOTIME and Love It If We Made It definitely stand out. I give them credit for trying a variety of other things with this album, tempo/style, but nothing really hits. It's okay, but not something i'd go back to.

Still not my thing, but this one has more good songs than the other album that was submitted. So if someone asks me what my favourite The 1975 song is, I can now answer ”Love It If We Made It”

I was bored

This might be my least favourite 1975 album, sorry - just trying too hard to ape OK Computer and a bit all over the place. The album before this was pretty cool and their latest one is great, but this one doesnt click for me. Sincerity is Scary is an absolute banger though

It's a fairly good album, but honestly, after 1226 albums, I believe I'm becoming a bit picky with my stars. It need much more to be impressed now

Experimental, electronic, rock, pop. Ni fu ni fa.

While the production was stellar, the songwriting was underwhelming, especially when combined with the vocals, and it led to a very boring album overall. Goodnight. 3/5

I'm really enjoying this album. Very comfortable with the music and lyrics

Fluctuates between genuinely interesting stuff and the most boring pop music of it's time. Love It If We Made It is a banger synth-led track that is preceded by a captivating mostly-instrumental IDM song. The Man Who Married a Robot is a spoken word interlude akin to Radiohead's Fitter Happier, albeit not as poignant. Mine is a lovely jazzy number. The rest fall between forgettable and less than. I think the 1975 has interesting influences but they struggle to make them all fit eloquently. Despite this, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships feels like a landmark album for millennials. Or at least, it's trying to be. It certainly feels like the most ambitious alt-pop album of it's initial wave, but falls short half the time that it makes me wish they went back to the drawing board a few more times. To be clear, I like a lot of the ideas in here, I just feel like it needs to be punched up a little more so that it makes for a more cohesive, consistent album. Good effort though. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: Despite a lot of hubbub surrounding this album and doing fairly well on a number of year-end album lists, I don't quite feel it's maintained a legacy 7 years later. So, no.

So so. Expecting more

Maybe a sign I’m turning into a grumpy old man, but I really don’t get why the 1975 are so popular, even more so this week when they are headlining Glastonbury. This album hasn’t help change my mind on them either, all I hear is a whiny pop band with guitars.

I honestly thought I was going to hate this. And I did.

Not for me.

A very excellent, catchy pop tune surrounded by auto tuned nonsense.

Not for me

Didn't like it. Autotune used this much just sucks.

This is like listening to pop radion in the 2010's. I don't think there is anything cohesive or impressive about this album. It's feels pointless to me.

I did not enjoy this one at all, the music was frustrating to listen to and over used auto tune is nauseating. Bad

The 1975 is like if you took plain white rice and wrapped it in gold foil. Kinda just nothing. At least it wasn't actively obnoxious like that other album of theirs that was on here.

not for me

Autotunes

So The 1975 are apparently pretty big but I've never knowingly heard anything of theirs and A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships makes me think that's a good thing, because it's crap. It's incredibly boring, it's really badly autotuned, it's like AI making music and somehow being successful. 1/5 because it annoyed me and it lasts nearly a whole fucking hour.

The production's a little more scattered and intricate, but it really is a basic pop album at the end of the day, right down to devolving into crappy ballads by the end of the thing.

More derivative than f’’’(x)

I wasn't expecting to dislike this album as much as I did. I found this album close to insufferable. It tries too hard to be clever and ends up sounding fake and overworked. The mix of styles doesn’t blend; they sit awkwardly next to each other without any real connection. Everything feels calculated rather than genuine. The endless vocal filters are unbearable. “I Like America & America Likes Me” almost made me give up on the album completely. I skipped it after a minute and a half. “Inside Your Mind” buries weak songwriting under fake violins, and “It’s Not Living” is another disaster. Even when a song like “I Couldn’t Be More in Love” shows a glimmer of soul, it’s lost in overproduction and artifice. For fans, that curated artificiality is probably clever commentary on how digital life blurs real feelings. But for me, the result is empty

The smell of your hair Reminds me of her feet

Hey Matt Healy. Growing a beard is not so difficult, and whiskey can taste nice if you know which sort of whiskey to start with. I think that's what you should tell your younger self during your trademark nonsensical rants... But I guess you need to have reached some kind of emotional maturity for that -- for that, and also for a lot of more important things in life. Anything that's not related to your self-centered concerns, so awkwardly expressed here... I have already spilled too much ink on the case of Matt Healy in my review for the other The 1975 album on this list. In truth, there's not much to say about someone who writes and sings garbage such as "the smell of her hair reminds me of your feet" on a sad-sounding ballad that's apparently dead-serious and not a parody thing. So instead, this review will try to delve into the *music* of The 1975 in *A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships*. Yet to be perfectly candid, I kind of expect that this plan will be a waste of ink as well given the subject matter. Of course, I could be cute about the whole idea and only make a "brief inquiry" into said music. But some disasters are so impressive that you just can't help going slow-motion on them. My first words will be laudatory, oddly enough, because they are about "Love It If We Made It". It is indeed an excellent composition, laden with dizzying synth arrangements to boot. I have always liked that one. It's the one song by this band that proves that, technically, they could reach the skies in their endeavor to create topical postmodernist eighties-minded pop displaying some amount of artistic flair... Unfortunately, this song is not the rule, it's the exception. For a moment, I thought I could go over a 1/5 grade because of it, but it's simply impossible. Some cuts are listenable if you like mall music, I guess. Before "Love It If We Made It', "Give Yourself A Try" and "TooTimeTooTimeTooTime" could admittedly serve as decent additions to a chill "summer vibes" playlist, filled with other superficial-sounding tunes. In all honesty, the lyrics of the first are probably a little too grating for those types of playlists. But the second would fit perfectly, at least. Yet all lyrical concerns aside, and just to stick to the music, "decent" is still a far shot from "stellar" or "essential". This is how the quote-unquote "*OK Computer* for millennials" is supposed to start??? Are you serious? The thing is, that couple of early near-duds are not even the worst this record has to offer. No the worst is to be found after "Love It If We Made It". And more to the point, it's ALL the songs after the album's hit single. Those songs are ALL flat on a harmonical and compositional level. The dynamics are drowsy. The textures are hackneyed. The vocal hooks are annoying as f*ck, and somehow they still fail to leave an imprint in your head (thank the Lord for that!). And yes, I'm taking usual eighties pop aesthetics into account here (The 1975 are today's Scritti Politi, in short -- they're not even Duran Duran). It's just forgettable, all of it. How many times have I tried to reevaluate the band's music? Too many times. And it never works for me. There are some stylistic curveballs here and there, but it doesn't matter: those curveballs are just diversions showcasing the same sort of weak inspiration all over again, only presented differently. Whatever The 1975 tries to pull off, 99% of it always sounds bad or fake or both. Total borefest. On a sidenote, I couldn't help noticing that the user who suggested this record and I have quite a few albums in common in our respective galleries. So what the hell do they hear in The 1975 that I can't hear? Or more to the point, why is that user becoming so complacent to the point that they refuse to be picky for this band? Why can't you realize that The 1975 routinely creates the sort of dross you would barely register if it was labeled under another band's name on yet another corporate-looking Spotify playlist? Beats me. 🤷 When asked by Matt Wilkinson of Beats 1 Radio about the supposed similarities between *OK Computer* and *A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships", Healy had this to say: "I'm so humbled. It's amazing but strange also..." Translation: Matt Healy himself knows this comparison is a crock of shit. He himself knows the two just can't compare. And I'll take his embarrassed reaction as a redemption moment for him. Put yourself in the guy's shoes: how would *you* react if someone stated something so incredibly stupid about the actual quality of your work in front of you? Like, Healy can't say: "you're going a little too far, mate!". So maybe the man's not as hopeless as I thought he was... Maybe he's just a little lost inside the whole goddamn circus he has helped creating in the first place. And maybe he's like all of us, he's lost because the world is indeed mad and there's not much you can do to bring sense to it (as bizarro as Healy's lyrics are, I can still recognize that this particular topic is worth a visit on paper). Good for him if he makes a living doing stuff he loves and there's an audience for that. I might not like the guy's vibes, I don't hate him to the point where I would entirely blame him for the way his band has been overrated for too long now. That part of the equation is not his fault. But as a consequence, it's really, *really* hard for me not to blame the band's fandom (along with all those misguided "professional critics" who have praised Healy's act for too long now). You guys are wasting everyone's time, and more importantly, you are wasting everyone's time *for something that does not need more promotion anyway*. The 1975 are way too famous for the sort of crap they release. And yet just look at the global score for this album on this app! Have the bad news sunk in *at last*? For a "pop band" that supposedly caters to the lowest common denominator, this one is just considered lame by a majority of folks. So are you getting it now, fans? Or are you still in denial? And NO, it has nothing to do with a supposed "generational" thing, which is the selling point all those dumb "OK Computer for millennials" takes have used to shreds, quite maddeningly. The intellectual dishonesty and/or laziness of those sorts of taglines was obvious from the get-go anyway... It was a pitiful attempt to give prestige points to the whole debacle (and it worked!). Many quality modern pop acts don't need to resort to such manipulative shenanigans, fortunately. Take Billie Eilish, Rosalía, Charli XCX (incidentally the partner of The 1975's drummer, George Daniel, make of that what you will...), Lorde, Troye Sivan, Magdalena Bay, 100 Gecs and so on... I don't necessarily need to look into the past to express my love of their music. Because, as postmodernist as all those acts are, there's *also* something vital in their music *today*. It's the exact contrary of those tired tropes about how you need to rehash the past -- or pretend you do so -- just because it helps selling boring songs on a "market". Those tropes can only go so far after all when faced to what really going on musically... But to be fair, a brief "inquiry" into the neverending rules of making *good* pop music was enough to realize all that from the get-go (and maybe I should have started there). Catchy choruses. Dynamic and inventive arrangements. Propulsive moments. Harmonic surprises. Endearing melodies. A truly groundbreaking sonic palette. A minimum amount of creativity and soulfulness. Genuine emotions you can relate to. A lack of concern for what people might think of you as a person (Hi Healy!). Tapping into a higher power instead. And writing songs most people will care about and remember fondly as a result. Everything that, minus one song, this whole album is devoid of. ---- 1/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 6/10 for more general purposes (5 + 1) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 58 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 78 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 143 (including this one) ---- Emile... Ma propre balise temporelle... Tu trouveras mes trois dernières réponses sous les albums d'Eric B. & Rakim, Shpongle et Ookla The Mok...