The 1975's latest release, Being Funny In A Foreign Language, out now
The 1975 released their fifth studio album, ‘Being Funny In a Foreign Language’ on Oct. 14th.
British pop-rock group, the 1975, last album was an 80 minute record, with one of the opening tracks being based on the monologue of teen climate change activist, Greta Thuneberg. Released in 2020 during the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ tackled a plethora of different themes.
With that album behind them, they are back this time with a contrasting album, also their shortest coming in at just over 44 minutes. With the album being so short, it gives every song a feeling of intention and purpose.
The 11 track album, ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’, produced with the help of Jack Antonoff, gives a hopeful sense of the future. Being Funny is a pop focused album, filled with eye catching lyrics and sexual jokes.
Frontman Matty Healy creates a very empathetic atmosphere on this album, opening with the fifth rendition of ‘The 1975’. Healy apologizes on this track saying, “I'm sorry if you’re living and you're 17,” empathizing with the youth of the world. Later on in the album diving even more into that feeling in 'Human Too’, where he longs to connect with another person on the same level asking them to tell him they're “human too”.
Commenting on the state of the world is not a new concept for The 1975, and they repeat the pattern in this album Tracks like ‘Looking For Somebody to Love (To Love)’ and ‘Wintering’ are upbeat songs, with social critiques so impressively written riddled throughout them.
With lyrics like “A supreme gentleman with a gun in his hand,” and ‘Now stop the percussion, I wanna have a discussion, And it's Christmas so it's gonna be a nightmare,” Healy manages to write about the mind of a mass shooter, and the phenomenon that is arguing with your distance relatives over the holidays in less than an hour.
Masculinity is also a touched on subject, in ‘Part of The Band’ when Healy compares men to coffee, where he likes them “full of soy milk” and “so sweet [he] won't offend anybody”.
The group is known for their edgy and thought-out lyrics, but track 6, ‘I’m in Love With You’ is the most uncomplicated and effortless song of the album. Shouting and stuttering the title in the melody over a multi-layered instrument, fits in perfectly with the tone of the rest of the songs.
“I think I’ve realized what I do: I write about how we communicate interpersonally in the modern age — mediated by the internet. Love, loss, addiction. That’s what I always do. Every other record has been a bit like, “Love! And me! And this! And that!” I think “Being Funny” is the first time where I’m a bit like, “OK, right, love. Let’s do love,” Healy said in a recent video interview when being asked about “love being the most common word on the album.
Ending with ‘About You’ and ‘When We Are Together’, the ballads create a cohesive stopping point. Both songs are earnest, with a duet from Carly Holt on ‘About You’. With the album winding down, Healy writes “It was poorly handled, the day we both got canceled, because I’m a racist and you're some kind of slag,” still tying in a stand out lyric on the mellow song.
