The example we always use is like, if you think about the Rage Against the Machine records in your mind, they sound really aggressive and really distorted. I mean, there's a compromise when you're recording something and want it to sound really aggressive and angry, there's always a slight compromise. George Daniel: We were always pretty conscious of it being like, slightly abrasive.
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Having it be a bit abrasive, was that intentional? Or was it still just the message that was carrying the sonics along? Let's say easy listening is having the headphones on, volume all the way up, and being able to sustain that over a long period of time. The sonics being quite harsh, it's not as easy listening as some of the tracks you named. It just became a vessel for us to express where we were at any given point. And then when we started playing it along with "Love It If We Made It" and "I Like America and America Likes Me" and Greta, and it started to become quite a vessel for being. It was just an example of what this record was going to be like, which is everything that we are.
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Heavy music bands like Refused and stuff like that. It comes from a place that's really deep in our early DNA. Young voices of progression being drowned out by regressive ideals. I think that "People" was about that kind of outward, fearful projection of what we saw. This is gonna be their heavy record." It was always just an example of it being the same as every record, which is just a record about us and a record about me, and the kind of all-encompassing human experience. Matty Healy: I think that this record, like when we put out those first two statements - cause people like to project - people were like, "Oh this is gonna be their environmental record. Looking at the other songs, how has that song has stood up to you? Playing it live, what was that experience was like? Something that people were describing as surprising, but it doesn't feel all that surprising looking at it in the record's context. The next track I want to move to is "People." Having that come out so many months ago, it started the album era with a bang. Matty Healy: Yeah then it became about Greta, and that was it.
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And then the conversation immediately became, "What is the most modern statement?" Well, we were trying to figure out what the most modern version of that was. And I think that we'll always do that, but this time. And then you're at a new time, and we're checking in. Matty Healy: Yeah, you have the loading screen and then you have a startup which was basically like every time, like a buffer, basically every time you hear it we're kind of starting up again. And I actually realized that I think we'll always do that though, because it's like, Microsoft or Sega or PlayStation. Matty Healy: Yeah, that's a thing that I got asked like quite specifically the other day, about that and where that came from. George Daniel: Well not the title track, but the soft title: "The 1975." George Daniel: I mean, people are always going to miss having that vocal in that track, but in our minds we were always kind of ready to move away from that, but to keep the concept of keeping the title track. But we have people like Greta on there, kind of laying it out as matter-of-fact as it is.
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Do you know what I mean? From an individual's perspective. Like this record is an actual record of what's being, I suppose, worried about right now. Matty Healy: Yeah, but I think now it is a slightly different world and the only thing that I do care about or that I do put thought into is the fact that in 1000 years if we're not here anymore, or if it's now, if we all die out now. Having that be so powerful right at the beginning. George Daniel: It would feel weird to take any sort of credit, well not credit, but to be like, "Yeah it feels more powerful now." Or maybe it will to some people, but we can't really think about that right now.ĭo you have any updated thoughts about having it stand alone, separate from the band's other title tracks? It feels kind of different listening to the record now that it's completed as a whole. You know what I mean? Like overnight, the world got worse because of this, but if overnight the world had gotten better somehow, then maybe the record would feel, or a track like Greta's, would feel weird. But I think, to be honest, in order for the record to not make sense, and to feel unjustified or to feel a bit scared, it would've, something on a global level like coronavirus that was positive would have had to happen. Matty Healy: The thing is, right, with this record, obviously there's an element of it feeling a bit like, you know it kind of prophesizes what is to come a little bit. PAPER: I want to talk about the lead track, "The 1975." With Greta Thunberg's monologue and message, I wondered if you had any updated thoughts or a different perspective in light of the coronavirus outbreak.