I like it when you sleep… defies categorization by design, but its core sits somewhere near the sentimental, dewy male pop music of the ‘80s.
All of this is coming from a band that rose to prominence in their native UK on the back of a sharp, specific sound, one captured in singles like "Chocolate" and "Sex": lurid, histrionic guitar-pop. Of course, they’re also interested in writing atheistic D’Angelo-lite gospel epics, reverent takes on turn-of-the-decade chillwave, a smothering bit of shoegaze, and multiple lengthy ambient interludes. In the three years since their debut was released, Healy and the rest of The 1975 have mastered the composition of ecstatic, precise pop music. "The idea of provoking ambivalence is my biggest fear." (He’d go on to cite "being perceived as retrogressive" and " finding himself so brilliantly fascinating" as his biggest fears within the space of the same interview.) "I’d rather people think I’m pretentious than not care," he told the NME. "Not on her four-post bed as I leaned out the window with a cigarette.") If that’s repellent enough to send you screaming back to your Discover Weekly playlist, no one can blame you, not even Healy. ("Not in such a poetic situation," Healy clarified to Billboard. The 1975’s second LP is called I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it, an audacious and stupid title born when frontman Matthew Healy literally said it to an ex-girlfriend and thought it profound enough to write down.
You can call him whatever you want, but you can’t deny his ambition, and if you think I’m talking about Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo I can’t blame for you being mistaken. It’s a tonally incoherent record, leaping from genre to genre with abandon its balance between piercing profundities and lyrical groaners is roughly even. He’s the kind of guy you either love or love to hate, and he spends the entire record grappling with fame, faith, family, fidelity, drugs, and their impact on his mental health.
The best album released this month revolves around an admitted egomaniac.