the 1975 - a brief inquiry into online relationships poll

I reckon 'Love It If We Made It' is gonna take this as it seemed to be almost everyone's favourite track from the LP, but I'm gonna vote for the closer.

I like this album, but I'd be lying to myself at this point if I said I liked it more than the last one.

Same. The last half is a bog.

I voted for "TooTimeTooTimeTooTime"

The cold light of two months reveals tootime as the easy winner ... i’m big fan of Healy et al but narcissist is my favorite track to come out of their orbit in the last year

Probably It's Not Living, but Inside Your Mind is capable of changing my, well, mind

i couldn’t be more in love

the last half is the best part

I still think they could have come up with something better for the opening track than the created-at-the-11th-hour piano and vocoder monstrosity that they ended up slapping onto the final LP, even if it does make thematic sense musically.

Also, the elevator jazz of 'Mine' grated on me very quickly - worked well over the Christmas period, though!

I like to love everything else.

relistening to this for the first time in a few months and wow i have no fucking time for “be my mistake” anymore

Sincerity is Scary for me. I think I only really like about half of this album.

i immediately regretted not voting for "sincerity" good call spottie

"Love it if we made it" is tied with "Thank You, Next" for 2018 singles with the best few opening lines. Or at least the ones that for stuck in my head the most.

relistening to this for the first time in a few months and wow i have no fucking time for “be my mistake” anymore

― jolene club remix (BradNelson)

I had that same feeling earlier today. I'm not that big on Inside Your Mind either.

I love the agonisingly slow tempo of 'Inside Your Mind' ... I couldn't imagine getting sick of that one.

it's "love it if we made it" of course but the last two tracks aren't too far behind either.

notes on a conditional form has been delayed to sometime around july/august i think unfortunately, with the current plan being for the first single to be out on may 31

lol of course

Give Yourself a Try

This fad of putting 2 albums out as part of the same campaign/era means bands are just putting the half-finished doodly ones that would have been B sides, on the albums instead. The number of songs across 2 albums released in the same year is about the same as you'd have had for say the number across an album and 3-or-4 singles in the 90s or whatever.

Yeah, those half-finished doodly B-sides of Suede and Oasis. Fad? Putting two albums out in a year used to be common in the '60s and '70s, but that's not what The 1975 are doing. Nor is it a current fad, that implies most bands are doing this - they aren't.

B-side quality in the '90s became a little more hit and miss when bands/artists started releasing two different versions of the same single with different B-sides, but if you're talking 1 x 12 track album + 4 x 2CD singles, that's a minimum of 28 tracks (2 x b-sides) and a maximum of 36 tracks per LP cycle.

Alright mate.

Give Yourself A Try is my fav replay wise

still find it surprising that that’s your fav, great song tho

might throw a vote for “how to draw/petrichor” but really irks “it’s not living” or “love it” probably

I love it how 'It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)' is the only song on this that sounds anything like their first album. They've tried so many possible new directions since. I grew to like the debut eventually.

Alright mate.

― piscesx

I love it how 'It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)' is the only song on this that sounds anything like their first album. They've tried so many possible new directions since. I grew to like the debut eventually.

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Tuesday, March 19, 2019 11:04 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

give yourself a try sounds way more like their first album

― piscesx, Tuesday, March 19, 2019 4:19 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<333

the last half is the best part

― jolene club remix (BradNelson)

same.

right now i can't choose between "I Like America & America Likes Me", "I Couldn't Be More in Love" and "I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)". and i almost want to vote for "Mine".

'I Like America & America Likes Me' felt a little formless to me at first, but now I really love it. The track on the album that was the biggest grower for me.

give yourself a try sounds way more like their first album

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, March 19, 2019 7:04 PM(yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How so? Which part?

it sounds closer to "sex" than anything else they've done since - though it's not that similar, it's just that they're both post-punk-influenced rock songs in a way that makes them relative outliers in their catalogue

Hmm, I don't really hear it. Like, with 'It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)', I can comfortably point to that and be all like "yeah, that's the same band that did 'Heart Out' and 'Settle Down'" ... I can't do the same for 'Give Yourself a Try' vs. any track on the debut.

“Milk” might be the best prior reference point.

'This Must Be My Dream' just came up on shuffle and every time I hear it, I'm struck by how much of a perfect imitation of late '80s production styles it is. It also, like a lot of tracks from that LP, sounds quite full and lush. The tracks from ...Brief Inquiry... feel far more sparse and drier by comparison.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

those two jokers, identify thyselves

I’ll own up to it.

(That Said it was out of a genuine desire to see the song represented, not pure nose-thumbing)

Yeah, totally unsurprised by these results.

Owning up too. It was only my 2nd favourite track, but I thought enough people would have voted for LIIWMI anyway.

ilx pollbot accepted my vote for "sincerity is scary" but not my earlier one for "i couldn't be more in love." then again maybe i never voted for "i couldn't be more in love" lol

Listening to this again, and feeling that 'Be My Mistake' and 'Inside Your Mind' should have at least got one vote each.

i was thisclose to voting for inside your mind, shoulda pulled the trigger

inside your mind is top 3 for me for sure

kinda get why it would have no number one votes tho

it's an amazing song.

I think this album could have been sequenced a lot better

it's weird how it comes in hot then end w/all slow jams

I’d be interested in suggestions of better sequencing because yeah I never got into this past the songs released early

start by removing "Be My Mistake" and "Man Who Married a Robot"

Nah, start by removing 'Mine' and keep the rest.

Ha, I'm actually having a go at this now and this set of songs is actually proving to be a pain in the arse to sequence and include everything. The best I was able to come up with involved getting rid of 'Mine' from the main tracklisting (an easy one, as I don't like it) and 'Surrounded by Heads and Bodies', which seems to feel wrong no matter where I put it - so both ended up being hidden tracks in the '90s stylee!

(0. Mine - pre-gap hidden track)

1. The 1975
2. Give Yourself a Try
3. TooTimeTooTimeTooTime
4. Be My Mistake
5. Love It If We Made It
6. I Couldn't Be More In Love
7. Sincerity Is Scary
8. How to Draw / Petrichor
9. I Like America & America Likes Me
10. The Man Who Married a Robot / Love Theme
11. Inside Your Mind
12. It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)
13. I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)

(*gap*)

14. Surrounded by Heads and Bodies (hidden track)

who will be bold enough to suggest moving "the 1975"

my resequencing:

The 1975
Give Yourself A Try
TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME
Love It If We Made It
Be My Mistake
Sincerity Is Scary
How To Draw / Petrichor
I Like America & America Likes Me
Inside Your Mind
It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)
Mine
I Couldn't Be More In Love
I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)

There's also other factors to consider when compiling an album - things such as crossfades and gaps between the tracks. For mine, insert about 2 seconds of silence in between 'Sincerity is Scary' and 'How to Draw / Petrichor', crossfade the sounds at the end of 'Inside Your Mind' with the sounds at the beginning of 'It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)' for a more seamless transition, and add about 3 seconds of gap between 'It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)' and 'I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)' ... I wish I could swap the opener for a better version of it, but given that's what they came up with then it is what it is.

(xxpost)

Here's a hot take: imo this album is perfectly sequenced and its gradual descent into softness is one of its best features

Actually, no. Remove Be My Mistake and then it's perfectly sequenced. Before the full album came out and i'd just play the early singles on repeat, the transition from Love It If We Made It to Sincerity is Scary always worked so well. Also Be My Mistake sucks.

I like 'Be My Mistake' ... the only criticism I can level at it is that the arrangement is so bare that you can't help but focus on the lyric, which isn't one of Healy's best, and he isn't a great lyricist to begin with. Otherwise, it's quite pretty and far from the bland elevator muzak of 'Mine', which is some Harry Connick Jr. style shit direction which I hope is gone completely on the next album.

resequencing records is not interesting

15. "I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)" 3

This song deserves better. One of the best 3 songs on the album, along with the two that placed highest in this poll.

that one blew me away at first but then i cooled on it, likely because it’s the one that most betrays their well-hidden blurophilia

I was listening to the album tonight and I realised that 'I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)' and 'It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)' are the only moments on the album, for me, where they sound like a band. A lot of the rest sounds like it was either written from scratch or pieced together on computer, or a Healy solo performance was recorded to Pro Tools and overdubs were applied to that ('Be My Mistake', 'Inside Your Mind') ...

... I have to say, I'm not taken with some of the production/mixing on this record. Their first two albums - particularly the second - sound really thought out in the production department, but something like 'Give Yourself a Try' - even though I like it as a song - sounds like it was thrown together "in the box".

Not that there's anything wrong with the approaches they used to create, say, 'TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME' (on one hand) or 'Inside Your Mind' (on the other), but on their next record I'd like to hear them be more of a band.

I would definitely appreciate a little more thematic cohesion in the next record

I like a couple of the zero-vote-getters on this poll ("Be My Mistake" especially), but generally speaking, they are spot on.

I will always lean toward "give us more and we can ignore/tolerate the stuff that's not up to par" as opposed to "release 9 songs every 5 years" (especially early or in a particularly fruitful period of a career) BUT I do hope that at some point someone in this band decides/learns to cut the weaklings and gives us a perfect 10-to-12-track album.

I dunno, I'm listening to I Like It When You Sleep... again now, and even though it's 74 minutes long it's just breezing by. I think it was LJ that said that even though A Brief Inquiry... is a shorter record, it actually feels longer. I definitely agree with that. I love how rich and detailed the production is on I Like It When You Sleep..., too. It sounds like they were very focused making it. The first album actually plays like a Greatest Hits to me now that I'm willing to overlook how ropey Healy's vocals are on it at times.

I don't disagree with any of that ... Sleep is a better, more focused album than the newer one, imo. But I still think there are 3 or 4 songs they should've/could've cut from Sleep.

Yeah - I mean, they could have cropped 'Nana' and 'She Lays Down' off and had the album end on 'Paris' and I wouldn't have minded. Or cut 'Loving Someone' ... but I dunno, I'm glad they're there. I Like It When You Sleep... feels like a very generous record that I can't get enough of, whereas A Brief Inquiry... feels like too much.