The Daily Spin, November 14

The 1975 | A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023. 

Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite songs from each album right here.

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Album: A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (2018)

Artist: The 1975

Link:

       

There are a lot of albums that hold special places in my heart or head for a variety of reasons. Yesterday’s is a funny adventure into rap-rock that possibly has the strangest feature list of all time, while albums like 22, A Million or In Colour stick with me as fantastic demonstrations of what music can be. From the sunny joy of Carly Rae Jepsen on Dedicated to the dark, grinding reality of Burial, music encompasses so much.

A Brief Inquiry sits in the corner with albums like 22, one of those fantastic experiences that sits unforgettable in my brain - not that I’d want to lose this, of course. This is an album that, sat at the crux of the 1975’s total ascendancy to stardom, pulls no punches and makes no effort to be anything less than the absurdly ostentatious pop that this group has created for so long. 

This is their most bombastic album to date, one that builds on many of the gentler ideas expressed in i love when you sleep, dabbling in the crazed feel that gives each song an almost desperate feel - and though they occasionally pare it down, like with ‘I Like America’, it’s rarely a lasting effect, one that rapidly spirals into a near-psychedelic feeling. 

The comparison to 22 feels most apt - many of these instruments and vocoders press Healy and the band into a sort of ethereal and otherworldly quality, the sort of sound that presses in on you from all sides, expressing sentiment even as it dips into the unintelligible. It’s here that the album finds its best stride, if you ask me - through the distortion, you feel the deeply human emotions that these songs touch on. Clarity is a rare joy, and this album revels in the lack of it at its best.

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Rating: 9.4/10

Best Tracks: Inside Your Mind; Love It If We Made It; How To Draw / Petrochor; TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME

Worst Tracks: The Man Who Married A Robot/Love Theme