There must be something special about Manchester. Legendary bands like The Smiths, Joy Division and Oasis hailed from that English city. Even the Bee Gees and Swing Out Sister, among many others, came from Manchester.
Every so often an Anglo wave takes over the globe and even countries thousands of miles away get hit. Just last year, The Script, The XX and Bloc Party performed live in Manila and, most recently, The 1975—also from Manchester—graced Philippine shores for a round of live shows promoted by Ayala Malls.
However, The 1975 can’t be tagged as the commonly favored guitar-driven rock band, even if it records and performs as a four-piece composed of Matthew Healy (vocals, guitar), Adam Hann (guitar), George Daniel (drums) and Ross MacDonald (bass).
The band members are too young to have lived in the year 1975 and too good-looking to be a legit rock band; and their predominantly black, rock-star attire might seem pretentious once you hear their songs.
Hottest record
Their sound, a mix of ’80s pop, electro and R&B, veers towards the mainstream end of the spectrum. The band’s single, “Chocolate,” was voted No. 1 hottest record of 2013 by BBC Radio 1 listeners. The title itself is as pop as you can get, which is evident in the song’s straightforward lyrics, catchy hooks and repeated chorus patterns.
“Chocolate” is the fourth track in The 1975’s eponymous debut full-length album, which also contains the UK chart-topping “This City” and “Girls.” A deluxe edition of the album, which contains recordings from its four preceding, independently-produced extended plays (EPs) (“Facedown,” “Sex,” “Music for Cars” and “IV”) is distributed locally by MCA Philippines.
In a media conference a few hours prior to the first leg of its Ayala mall tour, the foursome enthusiastically spoke of their influences, musical style, and the long and winding path that led to mainstream success. They cited Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads and Boyz II Men as key musical inspirations. Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” and “Don’t Give Up,” a duet between the former Genesis vocalist and Kate Bush, are their top two favorite songs ever.
Although predominantly exposed to ’80s pop and ’90s R&B, they also admitted listening to more aggressive-sounding bands such as American posthardcore group Glassjaw, which came as no surprise, given that The 1975 started out doing punk covers when they were barely teenagers.
These guys are definitely into music, and Healy, the band’s vocalist, confirmed this: “We love music. We’re obsessed with music. It’s everything that we are.”
A cocktail of genres layered with echoes from a variety of musical influences is a tough act to follow; whatever you create is prone to sounding like every artist you’ve lent your ears to. In terms of songwriting, however, it has become natural for The 1975 to create what MacDonald referred to as “cinematic sounding music.”
Songwriting usually starts with Daniel doing drum beats on his laptop. Ninety-five percent of the songwriting is done electronically and then layered with guitars.
Organic
Healy expounded on the band’s songwriting process. “It’s an organic thing. We’ve always written music together because we grew up together, listening to the same music, hanging out with the same people. Our musical understanding was kind of the same thing, so we don’t have to look far. We don’t really talk about what we’re doing, you know.”
MacDonald added, “I think it comes from a place where initially we were young and we were fighting our fears. As producers our knowledge was primitive and not very vast, so the way that we wrote songs had to be the same in order for us to finish it. We had to use the same process without thinking about it. The recording process literally is the same.”
Distinct sound
Healy pointed out how the band had learned to create a sound that was distinctly its own: “Maintaining the consistency comes from the rhythms that we use, the chords, and my voice. I mean, like Coldplay, Chris Martin can sing over any song and it will still sound like Coldplay because it’s his voice. I think when you’ve got something like that, something that initially makes you think, ‘Oh that’s this, that’s that.’ Soon as you hear the elements of our band, you think, ‘Oh, that’s the 1975.’”
The band’s major-label debut album was released only in September last year. The members referred to it as “a diary” and “a scrapbook of ideas,” describing the songs’ lyrics and narratives as realistic interpretations of things that actually happened.”
These four young men assumed at least five different band names before finally settling on The 1975. They have been garnering worldwide attention since the album’s release.
Perfect story
“It’s kind of like the perfect story,” said Healy. “We weren’t making music to be a big band. We were just making music. We were like 17, 18. We lived in a nice area. Like, we didn’t have that whole thing of being a band and trying to get out of somewhere, using the band to raise our social status. We were just happy being middle-class kids making music for other people that we thought were cool. And then we didn’t even make a CD until our first EP. That was 10 years of not even putting out a CD. That was the best lesson that we learned. That our laziness turned into foresight. Everyone was like, ‘Oh you’re so patient to get it right.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah we were.’ It just all worked out perfectly for us.
“I think what happened was, when we were Big Sleep, we put out a video, our first song called “Ghosts” and we got a lot of attention, like a lot of industry attention. And then they came to our house to meet us, and they heard half of what is now the album. Now that album is quite strange. And I think when you work for a record label and you’ve heard one song, and then you go meet a band and every other song sounds totally different, you’re all scared. They didn’t like the idea.
“And we were saying, ‘Well, no, that’s the way that our generation consumes music. It’s good to have a band that creates music like that.’ They weren’t happy with that idea so we didn’t get signed. And then, we just did it ourselves. And we kind of made a plan, a plan that is still working. You know, we said we’re gonna do things and we’re doing it. And it’s gotten even bigger than we thought. We have a number one album. We never thought that would happen.”
The 1975 may not be your typical band, or your typical pop group, but one thing that sets it apart is that regardless of what genre it falls under, it strives to be The 1975 and no one else.
Challenging the rules
“I don’t know what we are, but one of the reasons that it works for us is because we don’t sound like a normal guitar band. We kinda look like one. Four guys, two guitars, bass, drums—that’s a very understandable medium. Everyone loves a band. I’m not saying we’re challenging that much, but we’re just challenging the rules within pop music,” said Healy.
They’re not even pressured by the whole fuss over being a Manchester band. “We have only our own standards that we need to meet. The whole Manchester thing is different because there’s a lot of Manchester kind of bands, but we don’t really sound like any of them. You got The Smiths, Oasis, etcetera, etcetera. It’s not really what we’re about. We’re doing this only because we like making records. It’s as simple as that. It sounds like an easy thing to say, but we just do this because we love it,” added Healy.
For some, it may be perplexing and difficult to understand how a band that isn’t quite a rock band and at the same time isn’t quite a boy band could actually have many fans. After repeatedly listening to every track on its album, however, I learned to appreciate The 1975’s songs for what they are—catchy, often danceable melodies infused with synths and less-than-ear-shattering guitars, topped off with honest recollections that Healy would utter as lyrics.
Melodic music
If the legions of fans in Glorietta last week would make an impression, it’s that The 1975 have transcended doubts that would stop it from becoming truly famous. It has succeeded simply because of what its members do, as expressed, again, by frontman Healy: “What we do is that we write really comfy, really melodic music that is designed to be like a soundtrack to somebody’s life.”
From being a support act to The Rolling Stones and playing in some of the biggest music festivals, to being asked to write songs for One Direction, and ongoing efforts for a second studio album less than a year after the first major release, who’s to say that The 1975 has no place in the 21st century music scene?