As we’re on the brink of spring, there are a lot of things blooming. A new season, excitement for summer and most importantly, new music. February seemed to be the month of bountiful album releases by artists such as Tame Impala, Justin Bieber, BTS and a lot of other big names in the industry.
The 1975 joins this bunch with their latest single “The Birthday Party.” This is a different sounding single for them compared to the recent heavy synth-based sounds they have been releasing, such as “Me and You Together Song,” which was as lighthearted as it sounds.
Contrastingly, “The Birthday Party” deals with some heavier, more serious content. As lead singer of The 1975, Matty Healy fought the battle of drug abuse through 2017, he expressed this openly through some of his lyrics. There are a lot of traces of his struggle in A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, but something about “The Birthday Party” seems a little more candid.
Healy puts an emphasis on his refrainment from romanticizing drug abuse, as a lot of artists are guilty of this. That is what makes this single so real and candid. He even includes dialogue and recollection of personal experience in his lyrics:
“Then I seen the girls and they were all like
Do you wanna come and get f*cked up?
Listen, I got myself a missus, so there can’t be any kissing. No, don’t be a fridge, you better wise up, kid.
It’s Adderall now it doesn’t make you wanna do it”
This addition of a personal account and dialogue allows for a lot of relatability in the song. Additionally, it seems structured like a poem in the title and line breaks of the lyrics. This really keeps Healy from romanticizing addiction in the song, as he simply recalls a personal event when he later states “I depend on my friends to stay clean.” Overall, with the minimalistic instrumental and very real, narrative-like lyrics, “The Birthday Party” is an intimate single.
This representation of candidness and intimacy is carried over into the music video for the single. Directed by Ben Ditto and co-directed and animated by Jon Emmony, it is a virtual reality of Matty Healy checking into a technology-free institution and taking a walk through some well-known memes and internet hallmarks.
The whole new album, entitled Notes on a Conditional Form, will be released on April 24, and is being followed by a tour with supporting guests, Phoebe Bridgers and beabadoobee. It is expected to be different from the ‘Music for Cars” era of music and from A brief Inquiry into Online Relationships as a whole.
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