So many fish

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list...

#36 : Notes On A Conditional Form - The 1975

After disaffected candour swept literature, many critics asked whether self-awareness had gone too far in fiction. There’s not much between the 1975’s Matty Healy and the creations of Naoise Dolan and Sally Rooney: across the band’s fourth album, Healy is acutely aware of his flaws, satirising and shrugging at his ego, his horniness, his political flakiness – and, yes, his overwhelming self-awareness. But where his fictional counterparts were criticised for declining to delve beyond surface recognition, Healy’s frustration at the social dynamics that affirm such behaviour is all over Notes on a Conditional Form. Nothing Revealed/Everything Denied sighs at life spent on the defensive; I Think There’s Something You Should Know sets Healy’s self-alienation to fractured two-step. Sincerity and connection, he suggests, are the only tonic: it’s there in the album’s guileless evocations of American soft-rock and emo (at 31, Healy comes from the last generation to experience an unmediated adolescence and with it unselfconscious teenage tastes) and its yearning for true devotion. Me & You Together Song vibrates with naivety, a vision of uncomplicated romance and unrelentingly Tiggerish indie-pop that remains insistently in the moment, swapping introspection for admiration.

And, at long last, we come to an album I've actually listened to!  (note that this is intended as a criticism aimed at me rather than the list - although I suspect some of the entries so far haven't been listened to by the artist's families, let alone anyone else).  I decided a couple of months ago I'd listen to some 1975 to see what annoyed so many people - and the first track on this album is a prime example.  It's almost as though they hoping to annoy you into just giving up on the album - fortunately I'm made of sterner stuff and made it all the way to the end.  And a lot of it is perfectly serviceable art-school pop with some decent tunes and harmonies, if somewhat earnest.  I didn't find any of it as immediate as that song of theirs I like (yeah, I've got absolutely no idea what it's called) but it's all perfectly fine.  Mind you, there's REALLY no need for 22 tracks over 80 minutes of it though.

Wikipedia amusingly points out "In general, Notes on a Conditional Form polarized critics, garnering both high praise and scathing criticism" - which seems to be just as true for The 1975 in general.  Customers also listened to Tame Impala and Haim (who I can really hear in some of the songs).  All in all, I seem to remember preferring their other albums but this one is fine if you like that sort of thing - I'm hoping for some considerably better albums further up the list though.

#35 : Working Men's Club - Working Men's Club

Their widely beloved 2019 debut single Bad Blood suggested the Yorkshire quartet could go in any number of directions – vintage new wave, jangly indiepop – but they headed for the club, using the industrial synth pulsations of Depeche Mode and early Ministry, and guitars that nodded to various legendary Mancunians – Bernard Sumner, Johnny Marr, Vini Reilly. From the singsong chorus of Tomorrow to the twanging riff of John Cooper Clarke, the melodies are insistent and prodding, set to unleash a poorly coordinated army of robot dancers when indie discos reopen

I don't remember their "widely beloved" debut single, but from the description I thought I might like this album.  And well, I both did and didn't.  There are bits I liked (particularly the guitars on "Angel", although I'm not sure I needed 12 mins of them) and it is indeed Depeche Mode-y and New Order-y, which is no bad thing.  Maybe a bit Joy Division-y, Human League-y and Gary Numan-y as well.  And maybe any other two word band names I can stick a "-y" on the end as well.  And I think that's the problem I have with it - it's so influenced (I was going to say "derivative", but that doesn't seem fair because I suspect they know exactly what they're doing) that I'm left just thinking "well, why don't I go and listen to the original stuff that I remember with fondness?"  

So Hans, am I the bad guy?  Maybe, although in my defence there have been other such groups that I've got into over the years - I liked The Bravery and I really liked Hurts and both of them did pretty much the same thing.  "Customers also listened to" A Certain Ratio and Doves - but who cares about them because they don't have 2 word names.  However, although I didn't get into this album I can recognise its quality - they've done what they do well, so I have no problems with it being placed on this list.  So I'm not such a bad guy after all, I guess - positively magnanimous!

In a glorious side-alley of research during this review, I came across this - hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

#38/39 - No, not for me
#34/33 - Not convinced by either of these