Is This Review Of The 1975’s New Album The Most Brutal Of The Year So Far?
"At this point, a more noble experiment for The 1975 would be to write an album where every song is good, or at least necessary," Hyden writes. "They haven’t done that yet."
The 1975 have been divisive from the very get-go.
The band have an equally committed base of fans and detractors. Merely the title of their second record, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It, prompted a wave of discourse online, and they’re either a group of geniuses or wankers, depending on who you ask.
So perhaps it’s unsurprising that their latest record, Notes on a Conditional Form, has caused a giant stir ahead of its release tomorrow.
The source of the controversy? A particularly brutal review of Notes from Steve Hyden of Uproxx.
Hyden opens the write-up with the admission that he’s so irritated by the band he can no longer call himself a fan. “The 1975 now see themselves as deep, and it has completely undermined what was so likable about them in the beginning,” Hyden writes.
No band I ostensibly like annoys me more than The 1975. Their new album NOTES ON A CONDITIONAL FORM feels like a tipping point for their grating self-importance. I wrote about it in this review. https://t.co/xB930FTave
— Steven Hyden (@Steven_Hyden) May 19, 2020
Hyden’s main sticking point is the band’s self-proclaimed importance. “Healy has come to see himself as an oracle for our troubled times,” the journalist writes, contrasting The 1975 with ’90s bands that seemed happier to settle with making good rock, not changing the world.
“At this point, a more noble experiment for The 1975 would be to write an album where every song is good, or at least necessary,” Hyden writes. “They haven’t done that yet.”
Since its release, the review has stirred up a new wave of 1975-inspired controversy. Matt Healy, the band’s frontman, actually retweeted the review, throwing petrol onto an already out of control fire.
The result? Healy fans and detractors alike jumping into Hyden’s mentions.
boomers smh
— sophia (@H0NESTFVCE) May 19, 2020
I know disliking the 1975 isn’t a personality trait but I haven’t read a review that bad maybe ever
— stoney bowles (@JackPritchard6) May 20, 2020
Stinging.
Will say that, while I like the 1975’s presence and sense of purpose, the music is just never…that good. https://t.co/nYtmBPiAgR
— Jules LeFevre (@jules_lefevre) May 20, 2020
That was a brutal album to listen to. Just brutal.
— Brian Zilm (@brianzilm) May 19, 2020
the 1975's new album is really good, sorry!
— jared richards (@jrdjms) May 20, 2020
Guess fans will have to decide which side they are more sympathetic to when the album drops in full tomorrow.