The 1975

Each of the band's three albums have started with a song by the same name with the same lyrics, just different arrangements. I read an interview with the lead singer, Matty Healy, in which he was asked about this version with the description that it was the most "sparse and strange so far." Right from the get-go, you can tell this album is going to be a departure. From what, I'm not positive. Maybe the original sound the band set out with their first album, or just generally different from what they've released so far?

Give Yourself a Try

When discussing this song in another interview, Healy said, "You're not gonna be the person you thought you'd be at 29." At 20, I'm finding myself in a multitude of crossroads and have slowly come to terms with the absolute and undeniable fact that I have no idea who I'll be in five or ten years because I wouldn't have even dreamed of who I am today when I was 10 or 15. The song, for that reason, just feels like a general acceptance of that fact which is insanely comforting.

It's also just an absolute banger.

TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME

I have not been so happy as I was when I watched the video for this song. It is just such a fun pop song without being contentless. It's like eating a macaron instead of eating cotton candy; it's still sickeningly sweet but at least there's some substance to it.

First name that came to mind when I said cotton candy was obviously Katy Perry, if that makes any difference.

How to Draw/Petrichor

Other than this album's "The 1975," this was the first new song I've heard so far (i.e. the first non-single on the album). It starts off so soothing and for a minute I think I might actually get back to writing my paper with this on repeat. It's so lulling and very very reminiscent of "iliwysfyasbaysu."

Okay wait this is cool. I mean, a little trippy and misleading because here I was literally just chilling and then the music gets so funky cool. It sounds like what walking through doorframe after doorframe with different colored tinsel curtains would look and feel like.

Love It If We Made It

Guys this is one of the songs on my Trump Era Angst Mixtape. Lyrically, it doesn't take a side in any American sociopolitical debates mentioned; it starts with a hard statement and then just keeps making hard statements. Like.... they just read off some of Trump's tweets as lyrics. I can't help but do this meme whenever I hear this song.

Be My Mistake

So I got goosebumps.

Whomst is this? I... I feel like I'm back in 8th grade- let me set the scene: Ed Sheeran has just come out with "+", everyone wants to be a singer-songwriter, everyone basically ends up crooning punk rock songs but like with one acoustic guitar, and then... you hear this as a sample on the iTunes store. WYD? You ignore it, you child.

This is just a step outside of the Ed Sheeran-frame singer-songwriter aesthetic, mainly because the lyrics are just something else. I feel like I'm gushing but damn this is so tender in such a painful way.

Sincerity is Scary

If the band hadn't put out "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)" as a single, this would have been my favorite by far. There's just something so inexplicably approachable about it. It isn't pop or rock or indie or R&B or alternative. It's just... a sing-a-long. I just started swaying as I was singing the chorus.

Friends, I'm now halfway through the album and with this song, I can said the album as a whole is a vibe and a half.

I Like America & America Likes Me

I'm so intrigued by the title. I have felt like my Americanness has been almost painfully inescapable this semester so I'm not sensitive but just like ooh, where is this going?

Ok so this is a Bon Iver mood- no- Bon Iver and Kanye when they hang out. This song can genuinely only be described as funky and is most comparable to "Friends" or "May I Have This Dance" by Francis and the Lights.

I'm not gonna lie: I can't tell if I like it or I'm just intrigued by how many moving parts are going on.

The Man Who Married a Robot/Love Theme

This one was a #hottopic in the two interviews I read, so before it starts I'm already intrigued.

There's something so disorienting that you can't help but smile and laugh. When you simplify humankind's relationship with the internet and technology down to what is basically the script of this spoken word song, it's a little scary mainly because it is so common and so true. Even if you do not end up on your own, lonely, living in a lonely house on a lonely street, the fact that getting "cooked animals" is essentially what the barbaric definition of UberEats-ing chicken nuggets to your dorm room means that we are all members of the disorienting relationship set forth in this song.

Also, the sheer fact that a movie about a man falling in love with the internet is already five years old is a bit scary.

Inside Your Mind

This made me think of the trailer for that show, "You," which I think was about a guy that became so obsessed with a girl he would do anything. This song is so beautiful but it's so disturbing. It's like, and I say this from a very loving place because he is my favorite author ever, a Chuck Palahniuk book in song form. You're unsettled entirely, but you also can't stop watching (or listening).

It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)

This is, arguably, my favorite song ever.

Is it about heroin and Healy's heroin addiction? Mmmmmyah. Are the lyrics seemingly lighthearted until you read them out and realize wow... that's what drug addiction looks like from inside the mind of an addict? Probably. Is it full of 80's funk and remind you of that rendition of Post Malone's "Better Now" and you truly can't not dance to it? Ooooh baby YES!!!

If I get out of the elevator on my floor in my dorm and I see there is no one around, I will (as I already have) put this song on and dance my way around the floor until I get to my flat. Have I hyped it up enough? Should I call it a bop to end all bops? Your bop can't even bop like this bop?

Surrounded by Heads and Bodies

Healy went to rehab this past year for his heroin addiction and, as expected, the album contained a lot about that.

To what is most certainly an uneducated mind re: rehab and drug addiction, this song sounds the way the concept and connotation of rehab appear in my mind. In an interview, Healy explains that Angela, who he is singing for, was another patient in the rehab compound with him. This song, even more so with that fact, is so heavy and so sharp of a comedown from the absolute bop-fest that was "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)."

I'm not really sure what I feel or if I have a right to feel anything about this. It sounds like your friend has just told you a heartbreaking story from their past and all you can do is just be there and support them.

Mine

Okay the first three seconds gave me such Celine Dion-"My Heart Will Go On Vibes" and I don't know where to go from here.

Okay the first thirty seconds are giving me Titanic vibes wow.

This is such an unrelatable reference but this song makes me remember what the drives home on Christmas Eve would be like when I was younger. My great-grandmother lived in Queens and so we would come in, pick her up, and take her out to Long Island on our way out there. Then, as you can guess, we would drive her back.

I think about those nights a lot, mainly because songs before have reminded me of how the lights looked on the highway home when I would crane my neck to look out the window at the sky. But this reminds me of the stretch of main road we had to drive through Queens to hop back on the highway after dropping her off.

Everyone else can make of that what they will; I'm in my feels after that song.

I Couldn't Be More In Love

This is another goosebumps song. I didn't know what the interviewer meant when he said the vocals were the most intense he had ever heard from Healy in this song until I actually heard it. You kind of have to give yourself a daydream moment with this song because it's almost visceral (I'm not crazy; I promise).

It's like standing on the curb waiting for the light to change when it's grey and windy and you're just like... I guess this is where I am now. Maybe that makes sense to no one else, but it has definitely been a London vibe.

I Always Want to Die (Sometimes)

This song sounds like the singular soundtrack song for the movie "My Best Friends Wedding." Or like the really sad part of "13 Going on 30" where you're like no!!! Jennifer Garner is doing her best!!!

I'm such a fan of cinematic songs and this is definitely a good one. Listening to it you almost want to look up to the imaginary camera and give a quick smirk, a quick shrug as if to say: "Yep. That's me!"