Being Funny In A Foreign Language

Was getting a little bit bored along this album.

This pop/rock album was well received by the critics, but it's not my cup of tea. There is not a lot of difference between the songs in tempo, they all lack any urgence and everything is much too soft and slick in my opinion.

I've never gotten into the 1975 so I was looking forward to listening to this. Unfortunately, I found this album to be incredibly bland and uninteresting. I can't even describe it, it just felt soooooo generic.

This sounds like the sort of shit they dance to at Hillsong and all those other groovy-funky "let's make god cool, kids!" born-again churches. Like wherever it is Coldplay does these days. Bin. 2/5.

This band was already overrated even before Matty Healy proudly(!) admitted to watching female torture porn to get off. This LP is pure puff pastry radio fare made to be consumed, paid for, and forgotten. Get some better music taste and moral standards, my dude!

The mix is a little lean for my taste in this genre. Looking For Somebody (To Love) is a good single, almost like The Bleachers meets Michael Bolton. But I wish that bass and kick had a little more body on the low end in the natural mix. Oh Caroline and I'm In Love With You are limp and overproduced. This album came out hot as a pistol and then totally vanished into the ether.

Pop rock, folk rock, indie pop, synthwave. Ni fu ni fa.

I'm not big on this band, but even I know this isn't close to their best album

1975 always made music that seemed like it was for mainstream people that wanted to feel edgy. The album was a bit of a snooze and there was a reference to a boner in less than 1 minute. Overall I thought it was impressively stupid but it was tolerable for the most part. 4.6/10

Nepo and the Bunnymen.

I thought I’d like this group, and I really did! I have been saying I wanted to hear the sax come back into popular music and here it is, along with some great tunes! I loved it!

I really like the 1975 and that’s okay

I liked this. Little bit of an odd vibe, shades of folk adjacent American indie in the Cloud Cult vein, Yacht Rock, Prog Pop a la Peter Gabriel. Still had its own definite voice and interesting writing.

Pretty interesting. 4 stars.

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Happiness, I’m in love with you, Human too, About you

I enjoyed this one. I was settling into the 80s homage but just as that was starting to wear thin it switched up enough to keep my interest.

A band totally off my radar and I rather like its modern pop sensibilitys. I must explore more.

Although I'm inclined to like the retro sensibility of this, I found much of it to be hollow and overproduced. Fave Songs: Happiness, All I Need to Hear, Looking for Somebody (To Love)

People really like the 1975 and that’s okay

Unfunny

Adult contempo for the 2020s

That was nice

I’ve never fully enjoyed or fully disliked a 1975 album - I find they never quite have that consistency that makes a great album, but all have pretty high points and their musical evolution is generally interesting enough for me to keep coming back to them even when I know I probably won’t love the whole thing. This is arguably the most consistent of theirs, and the left-field alt-rock of Part of the Band may be my favourite The 1975 song (it always reminds me of Pavement for some reason? not sure if that’s anything to do with the music or just because it has a lot of inventive euphemisms like in Silent Kit or Harness Your Hopes). I also love All I Need to Hear, a really tender and low-key ballad that doesn’t sound too cloying like some of their earlier slower songs. Those are really the only two that stick with me, but the rest is still a pretty good listen on the whole, and I like that they’re taking risks and pushing themselves. Hopefully album 6 will be the one that really works for me

Pleasant enough but not a keeper for me

Bit soft, bit dull

Love the 1975. Listened to this before and I don't know why, but it just seems boring to me? 2 About You is really great though (not because of tiktok lmao I swear)

Probably one of the most overrated band of the 2010s, here in a later album released as their trend was finally starting to peter out. Which triggers an extra level of perplexity in me. Couple of redeeming points: the iteration of the "The 1975" opener track for this record (continuing the band's tongue-in-cheek tradition), along with the Steely Dan-adjacent "Part Of The Band", admittedly have pretty cool melodies and arrangements (as much as this band is musically overrated for me, they've always managed to record a couple of decent cuts for each of their album). And the last four tracks are listenable, I guess. But the rest is just, as usual, the most generic 80s dross you can find this side of the 21st century. And I still don't know if the worst crime here is whether those other songs are so cheesy or so unmemorable. Not that I really care to find out. Because the mix between the salvageable tracks and the cheesefest cuts doesn't make a whole lot of sense anyway -- even if you want to have a benevolent take of the admittedly very competently produced recordings overall. As a result, the tracklist neither rhymes nor reasons and becomes a chore to go through, diminishing whatever assets *some* of the individual songs may have. All of this could warrant a 2/5 grade, but then you have to add the Matt Healy factor to the equation. Which thus becomes a substraction. That guy is, simply said and politely put, a self-centered douche. You know it from his stupid public "statements" online, which he routinely regrets afterwards (before yet another dumb tweet). Even Charli XCX, who has dated one of the band's members for a long time now (George), recently let on in public (and in very diplomatic terms) that Healy was sort of a nut job, and that he should be kept away from a phone as much as possible. More importantly, you can obviously sense how obnoxious and eyeroll-inducing Healy is through his lyrics. Oh, his heart can be in a right place sometimes, like when he tries to assess the state of our current culture and sort of lambasts individualism in our postmodern internet age in this album's opener -- obviously including himself in the criticism. The thing is, such mirror-effect is a double-edged sword given that almost *every* aspect of this discussion goes through his narcissistic, self-entitled, rock star "persona"'. It's sort of shooting yourself in the foot here. And even if you try hard to ignore the narcissist impulse, the end result feels way too "chatty" and heavy-handed, ruining whatever good lyrical ideas Healy had about the subject in the first place. Not that he always has good ideas. Here's for example what he had to say about the first lines of this song to Pitchfork -- and, in extension, about all the other lyrics in the album: "There are so many good dick jokes on the record. It’s all about my dick. I’m obsessed with my dick for some reason. I’m trying to figure out what that represents. I think it’s because there’s such potency to the idea of the dick, and so much fragility in modern masculinity, and my masculinity. I’m obsessed with that duality, of just, like, having a dick." So, basically, the guy admits... being a dick. Do we really need to comment upon *this*? That said, maybe Healy should stick to "dick jokes" once in a while and so spare us some of his "deeper" thoughts. At some point during the course of this LP, Matt's nihilism even encourages him to suggest that "wokeness" (whatever that word means, or whatever online caricature of the idea Healy has found online) is actually as bad as QAnon. When your brains are fried by doomscrolling, I guess you can end up equating one with the other, because nothing is real anymore. Yet you have to be a hopeless idiot not questioning your internet behavior after a while, and just go: "OK, wait". And worse, writing that sort of dumb shit in your lyrics and keeping them as is. That sort of thing will age like milk, if you want my prediction. Heck, with all the fascists or near-fascists in charge of so many places right now, it *already* sounds desensitized and out of touch with reality. But maybe all of this happens because Healy is nothing but an old fart in disguise, hiding behind convenient cynical layers an "old man yells at clouds" mindset. In the same album's opener, it's for instance hard to state whether he is first and foremost feeling sorry for himself or for the seventeen-year-olds he refers to in the chorus -- because they're supposedly living through some sort of internet-enhanced dark age. Hey Matt, maybe today's youth are gonna be somewhat fine, because they're better equipped to navigate those digital waters than you ever were. But what do I know? One thing's for sure, though. What's truly hilarious, beyond the opinion itself, is the fact that this neurotic mock-edgy goofball never once asked himself whether young people *truly* needed advice from someone as self-deluded as he is. Looks like this guy confused the size of his pecker with the size of his ego. Wouldn't be the first time this happens, after all. 1/5 for the purposes of this list of essential album. 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: 23 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 35 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 65 (including this one) --- Speaking of "being funny in a foreign language", I'm currently using this generator to exchange words with a very nice French Canadian chap, and the rest of this text is part of our correspondence. Don't know if we are really "funny" when we write to each other, but it's pretty cool directly reaching out to someone else in a space not intended for that. The internet is like most things in life, it's a tool. And it's up to us to make it something that can challenge modern alienation. Or at least try to. Sure feels nicer than listening to the nonsensical ditherings of a narcissistic twat, just because his once-trendy band made him famous. ---- Salut Marty McFly. Pardon, je veux dire Émile, ha ha. Elle m'a bien fait rire, ta ref à Retour Vers Le Futur. J'ai moi-même découvert le bouton "edit" sur ce générateur il y a pas très longtemps, et j'essaie de ne pas en abuser -- tant pis pour les fautes. Déjà qu'il y a pas assez d'heures dans une journée pour écrire ma daily review. Je devrais faire comme toi, y aller plus tranquille quand il y a un album que je sais que je vais aimer, et l'écouter dans les bois. Il y en a pas si loin de chez moi, mais il faudrait que je prenne mon vélo. Ça m'a toujours fait rêver les bois canadiens. Des fois je regarde sur Google Maps en mode satellite, je prends un coin au hasard dans ton pays ou autour de la frontière des US, et je regarde le paysage de l'espace. Weird, hein ? Réponses à tes deux dernières questions. Je suis prof d'anglais. Une autre raison pour laquelle je tartine autant sur mes reviews, peut-être. Ça me fait un entraînement pour écrire sur quelque chose dans cette langue. Et ça change des textes un peu limités pour les élèves de mon collège (de 11 à 15 ans). Les voyages scolaires ou de formation, c'est aussi parce que je suis un des deux référents européens de mon école (programme Erasmus). Tu crois qu'avec l'autre gros ballon de baudruche menaçant à la Maison Blanche, le Canada aura envie de rejoindre l'Europe ? Je blague, mais si ça arrivait je postulerais tour de suite pour une formation chez vous. 2e question, mes artistes préférés de ces dernières années. Impossible de tout mettre, donc je vais cibler des choses qui pourraient ptet te plaire. J'ai parcouru ta highest rated list, et relu tes réponses. J'ai donc enlevé tout ce qui est trop post-punk ou noise, ce qui a pas l'air d'être ton truc. Pareil pour le rap et le hip hop (tu dis clairement que tu "comprends pas" ça dans ta review d'un des mecs du Wu-Tang). J'ai aussi enlevé certaines chanteuses pop ou électro. Pour l'indie-rock, j'hésite, donc je vais tenter des suggestions quand-même... Première d'entre elles, un groupe QUEBECOiS et FRANCOPHONE (très rare pour moi), que j'ai vu sur scène à Nantes, en plus, et que j'adore. Il s'agit de Corridor. *Junior* et *Mimi* en particulier. J'imagine que tu connais ? Le chanteur a aussi un projet folk en solo qui s'appelle Jonathan Personne. J'aime un peu moins, mais sur scène, ça reste cool. Après ça, je te fais une liste non exhaustive, toujours en essayent d'imaginer là où tu pourrais accrocher (je me trompe certainement, mais sur un malentendu...) Big Thief (l'intégralité de leur discographie -- commencer par les deux premiers peut-être, Masterpiece et Capacity). Vu trois fois sur scène. Je suis assez dingue de l'écriture d'Adrianne Lenker (aussi vue en solo) Nick Wheeldon - Gift Un anglais qui vit à Paris et qui est tombé dans la marmite Bob Dylan / Big Star après des années garage rock. C'est quasiment un copain, il est longtemps sorti avec une pote. Mais je te jure que c'est pas pour ça que je le cite ici : il a un talent de songwriter incroyable, et il y a d'autres albums récents que celui-là à explorer ! Low Mais où commencer ? Carrière de 30 ans, tragiquement interrompue. Je le cite parce que les derniers albums sont juste pour moi aussi bons que les premiers, dans un rendu pourtant totalement différent. Mais tu peux commencer par *Things We Lost In The Fire* dans les plus anciens (cité dans la users list, au passage). C'est généralement calme et souvent mystique. Rest in peace, Mimi Parker. Ensuite, en vrac : Andy Shauf -- The Party et The Neon Skyline (soft-rock / indie rock) Father John Misty -- Mahasmashana (soft rock / indie rock) Lankum - False Lankum (dark folk irlandais) Being Dead -- Eels (indie rock un peu cinglé) MJ Lenderman -- Manning Fireworks (indie folk rock) Mitski -- The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We (vintage pop / dream pop) Jessica Pratt -- Here In The Pitch (vintage pop / dream pop) Et bizarrement, le dernier Vampire Weekend (pop rock), Only God Was Above Us, alors que j'étais pas un énorme fan d'eux avant. Et toi ? Faut que je te laisse, je dois aller à un "conseil de classe". C'est une bonne idée d'écrire les réponses en plusieurs "sessions" plus courtes. La prochaine fois, je ferai ça. Mais là, j'étais inspiré par tes questions. A+ Cyril