// How The 1975 Became The Ultimate Metamodern Band // — Part 1
I came across the “Robbers” music video around the same time I read about metamodernism for the first time. It was the Fall of 2015. Donald Trump was just a weird orange guy; global warming was in the “distant future”, and I didn’t copy Matty Healy’s mohawk because it would upset my grandma. A lot has changed since then: The 1975 has four more albums and is now my favourite band in the world; the concept of metamodernism has established itself as the best word to describe what the hell comes after post-modernism. However, I still avoid unconventional hairstyles because of my granny. I’ll dive into The 1975 albums and the band’s evolution through this text. I hope you are a fan like me; it’s gonna be a long read.
Okay, you probably know at least a little about The 1975, but what the fuck is metamodernism? The most straightforward answer would be a cultural mood oscillating between modern sincerity and post-modern irony. It is not a manual on how to make art, but a diagnosis of a recent cultural shift. It shows us a synthesis between the modern desire for an all-encompassing meaning for our lives and the post-modern doubt about meaning itself. Metamodernism art behaves as a pendulum; each time it reaches for absolutism, gravity drags it back to irony, and each time it feels stuck in apathy, gravity pulls it back to enthusiasm. Maybe you can already see what I mean. But I’m going to write about it all anyway. I’ve been thinking about this for years. Yes, I guess I am obsessed.
The Self-Titled Era:
// And this is how it starts… //
The album The 1975, by the band The 1975, beginning with the song The 1975, isn’t a metamodern album. Actually, it showcases a classic post-modern band. I tend to think all rock music is post-modern, but I’m open to changing my mind on this one. But good examples of modern songs are country songs, not like “Roadkill”, but more like Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me”, catchy, romantic, traditional, the kind of song you can sincerely sing looking straight into your sweetheart’s eyes.
We can find romantic songs during the Self-Titled Era, but they all came laced with a bit of irony or a nihilistic approach to life. You are never really sure if he is in love with the girl or if the feeling is induced by the drugs within his system. Songs like “Menswear” and “M.O.N.E.Y.” are mostly about intelligent wordplay and his extraordinary talent for creating rich sceneries in your mind with the least amount of information. He is sincere about his life, but not in the sense of opening up lyrically. Matty is just writing about what he knows: “Sex”, “Girls”, and “Chocolate” (weed). The “You look so cool” verse captured us all by our collarbones because it answered a hidden generational question: “How can we say we are in love with someone if we are not even sure we believe in love anymore?”
The “I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful, Yet So Unaware of It” Era:
// She said hello… //
And now our band has turned pink. Some things change, others stay the same. Matty still sings about sex, girls and drugs (the list of drugs increases). But there are two main changes on this album. Fame arrives in his life and turns out to be one of the main themes in his lyrics. Matty, actually, comes from a famous family in the U.K. As a teenager, he was already tired of managing fame as he saw his parents doing it. So, when his time arrives, Matty takes a whole other approach, becoming the nightmare client of any P.R. team. He is sincere about his drug-taking habits. Matty purposefully portrays himself as a stinky, diseased dickhead in his video clips. Of course, the hardcore fans knew he was a sweetie, but I guess he thought, “If the papers want controversy, they will get it by the lot until they get tired of it”. Matty pushes his irony to the limit. Even when creating a romantic song like “Somebody Else”, he feels the need to insert a bridge disavowing all his romanticism. What a shame!
But at the same time, he drops into this pit of irony and non-redemption self-awareness three incredibly sincere, almost cringeworthy, songs: “If I Believe You”, “Nana”, and “She Lays Down”. And that shows the beginning of his transition into metamodernism without realising it. He declares how tired he is of being an atheist without a rock-solid belief about the world. All that is left are the drugs, the sex and the crazy good saxophone solos so he can lose himself from his constant self-awareness about what we think about him and what he feels about himself. Post-modernism can only take us as far as this never-ending loop of thinking about how to think. And talking about post-natal depression and missing your dead nana isn’t cool; it is not proper for my Tumblr at least. But maybe we are all getting tired of trying to look so cool. So, how can we find ourselves?
// TO BE CONTINUED //
