The 1975 Merch
Musical Style And Influences
The 1975 have been classified as a pop-rock band. Scott Kerr of AllMusic wrote that the band combined “the dark and youthful themes of sex, love, and fear with ethereal alt-rock music.” Healy specifically cites Talking Heads, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Michael Jackson as musical influences; he states that his greatest influence is the oeuvre of filmmaker John Hughes.
For their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, Healy cited Christina Aguilera, D’Angelo, Roberta Flack, Boards of Canada, and Sigur Rós as inspirations, saying that they’re “a post-modern pop band that references a million things.” “I don’t even know what my band is half the time.” Their “melancholic” black and white visual aesthetic is juxtaposed with major keys and what the band calls “classic pop sensibilities.”
Extraordinary Experiences
Pitchfork critics have compared them favorably to the Big Pink. Paste described Paste’s S*x EP as “equal parts ethereal and synth pop,” with “haunting” and “smooth” vocals. Their “mellow,” uncomplicated style was praised for lacking “attention-grabbing production theatrics.”
Electropop, funk rock, indie pop, indie rock, pop, pop rock, and rock have all been used to describe The 1975. I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet Unaware of It is described as indie rock and pop. In numerous interviews, Healy has stated that their influence is “heavily rooted” in African-American music.
The public’s reaction to the band’s music has been mixed, particularly on social media platforms like Twitter, which Vice magazine’s Larry Fitzmaurice described as “perhaps the last public space for unfettered music criticism in an increasingly anti-critical landscape” in 2016.
He described them as “the Most Hated and Loved Band in the World” and described them as “underrated and overhyped, although the needle has far more often swung towards the former direction” in an essay on critical response. Veteran rock critic Robert Christgau said he thinks “they suck” and should not be called a “rock band” as they do not “rock“.
According to Fitzmaurice, the band’s debut album was primarily a straightforward rock album recorded “with a soft-focus and especially British sensibility,” whereas I Like It When You Sleep was only rock music in the most broad sense. Overall, he described their music as pop “in the realm of Alternative,” similar to INXS.