What’s something that made you feel old today? Personally, the whole “2016 was 10 years ago” trend has, like, really thrown me and my back for a loop. I’m another year closer to aging out of Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating pool, and whilst the prospect of a fully formed frontal lobe is quite captivating, I’m a lot more interested in celebrating the anniversary of The 1975’s Tumblr classic I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It—which turned 10 this year—recipient of many accolades, including Most Pretentious Album Title Of All Time, and revisiting it in the context of today.
I’m going to preface this with full transparency: I’ve listened to this record over a thousand times by now, sometimes passively, sometimes completely supplicated to its whims. I find something new to love about it every time—it’s so lurid, so vibrant, so alive. This album has its very own pulse, breathes alongside itself as a feeling, an experience, an offering, beyond auditory confines. If you’re looking for a negative review of this album, Anthony Fantano’s was kind of funny… otherwise, we’re here to visit an old friend and catch up on just how much times have changed since the last time we really spoke. What exactly happened in between?
Matty Healy has referred to this record as an attempt to “capture the psyche of [2015-2016]” through his own lens. It is, essentially, a response to the rapid disintegration of one’s preconceived perception of reality as the result of a groundbreaking shift in circumstance. It’s the self-indulgent aftermath of the fever dream that was The 1975’s debut album, and what its success—cultivated mostly online in similar timeframes and spaces as artists such as Halsey, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, and Arctic Monkeys—meant for the people at the centre of it, and for the world they inhabited.
This record doesn’t stay in the same place for very long at all, much like a touring musician; it refuses to be constrained, and cements this through the continual defiance of genre. Something I find very captivating about The 1975 is their ability to make a record that simultaneously lacks a linear progression or uniformity and yet still maintains a sense of cohesion. Any two songs may be almost entirely stylistically dichotomous and still sound unmistakably like The 1975. What they share is the raw, unfiltered vision of the musical outfit behind them, and for ILIWYS, that vision was to revitalize a perceived drought in the integrity and quality of not only the most popular music at the time, but the people propagating those ideals. I think it succeeded. After all this time, it still feels newer and fresher than the broader Pop-Sphere at large… because it wasn’t made with the same goal of digestibility. It was created to provoke, release, and process.
Healy uses cultural discussions as a means of self-reflection, of questioning oneself as a proprietor of the social issues we grapple with so viscerally today. I think that element aids the sense of resonance and novelty other artists lack for me. We, as a society, need to hear opinionated artists prattling on about the world around them, because we, too, are inhabiting that world: ideas must be challenged as freely as they are expressed in order to foster a state of equilibrium. A quality of resonance that defies social strata is responsible for the accessibility of this album, and in some ways, its success—in spite of its pedantics, experimental sounds, and points of pretentiousness, there is an unmistakable humanity about it. I think this record encapsulates that sweet equilibrium of man’s hubris and man’s humility; it is vulnerable and open just as much as it is polished and preened; it is as dynamic and fragmented as it is bright and pompous. It is brilliant. I can’t compare it to anything else, because there’s nothing quite like it.
I love every song on this record, but we’ve got to start and end somewhere. Do you hate performative males? Listen to Love Me, a song about performative males, by performative males, for performative people like you and I. It’s a brash, flamboyant parody of the insanity of tabloid culture—with a video featuring a shirtless Healy dancing provocatively, dolled up in gaudy red lipstick and bright blue eyeshadow (a la Ginger Spice), around cardboard cutouts of famous people like Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, and Elvis Presley. The lurid, grimy bass-line pulsates through each ear individually, evocative of the suffocating nature of a crowd lost in revelry. The song’s admittedly ostentatious lyrics sink their varnished claws into the superficial nature of connection in a networking-based world, one where vulnerability entails socioeconomic and professional consequences. They sink their teeth into the words of those who do not respect the origins of their wealth enough to tell the rest of the world the truth—or fight for those of us who do not have the private jet to fly around and do it ourselves. “We’ve just come to represent a decline in your standards, so what do you say? Hey!” This concept is of little novelty to us in 2026. I suppose ten years back we had a bit more trust in our entertainers, prior to the advent of cancel culture and the very early days of virtue signalling. Matty Healy, the child of two actors, is justified in sharing that disdain for the media. Being in a position to understand what it means to exist on both sides of the conditionally present fourth wall is incredibly valuable for anyone so directly involved in influencing popular culture, and I think having that specific foundation for a commitment to morale and integrity alongside such a perceptive eye and ear is what gives him the ability to curate everything about his artistic vision so precisely and so profoundly.
In She’s American, we bear witness to the culture shock of an Englishman immersing himself in the lurid calamity of Americana through a vibrant soundscape defined by glittery, sparkling synthesizers, a funky bass coalescing with the short, upbeat loops of the drum track, and one of the best chord progressions of any 1975 song—one guitar keeps a high-pitched melody that adds a sense of urgency while the dreaminess of the other evokes the disorientation intrinsic to this song. I get an almost transatlantic vibe from its sound and feel; it bites with distinctly English teeth and pulls back the swollen gums of American influence.
Lyrically, this song entertains a fantasy of a preconceived notion of another world and then endures its dissipation. It is so, so beautifully written: “I think she’s got a gun, divinely decreed and custom made… If she likes it cause we just don’t eat and we’re so intelligent // If she says I’ve got to fix my teeth then she’s so American.” Stereotypes are pulled from playfully, and there’s an oscillating intensity between the core musical elements of this song and its lyrical structure that gives it a certain lucidity I just can’t get enough of; there’s a wistfulness about it, laden in the dramaticism of the imagery. Everything about it encapsulates the duality that follows America around as a concept. Even once you’ve seen the uglier facets of it, you cannot forget the promises it has made, implicitly or otherwise, nor can you ignore the romance of it, glowing as beautifully and brightly as the poisonous innards of a neon light. It’s hard to let go of the part of you that still believes in the illusory elements of something, difficult to defy that mental musculature. So you keep chasing this idea or this dream even when you know it’s damned from the start; whether it be a girl, an aspiration, or a falsified image of your motherland.
Loving Someone is one of the most iconic songs on this record and, in my opinion, is the closest thing to a time capsule on it. By no means is it unique amongst the myriad of synth-pop tracks littering the band’s discography if approached from an exclusively sonic perspective. Rather, it relies heavily on its lyrical prowess, and Healy is a strong enough writer to make this work. A more complex instrumental—not to say that it’s lacklustre by any means—would have diminished the potency. Loving Someone is a series of social observations about how young people in particular are failed by the system and the greater status quo, emphasizing the necessity of counterculture for the wellbeing of society. Within the first verse alone, discussions are opened about gay rights, the scapegoating of ‘troubled teens,’ and a questioning of where the blame for the apparent dissipation of morale resides (the proposed answer is the media). It makes me feel a bit ill that the bar is still low enough to praise a white man for saying “hey, let’s stop hating each other and start thinking about who told us we have to hate each other”—but that just proves the point, doesn’t it? Of how easy it is to comply, or rather, how much more difficult it has gotten to tune out the noise?
This song is a precursor to their later, angrier politically-charged works like Love It If We Made It, encouraging introspection through its provocative, albeit poignant, prose and yet still nursing this sense of hope that things can improve. It captures that sense of optimism the carnage of the 2020s have siphoned from most people. Another thing that I love about this song is the inclusion of Matty Healy’s poem, ‘Orange,’ as a spoken-word interlude inserted deep into the mix. The fusion of lyricism and stream-of-consciousness poetry here is absolutely beguiling; it adds this layer of intimacy that is almost unifying, in a way. This song makes me feel small. There’s a great comfort in that reduction. Isolation can become quite egomaniacal if left unchecked.
Paris speaks to the general disillusionment brought upon by modern life. This song feels like the closing out of a long, beautiful, yet ultimately destructive chapter in one’s life; it recounts the absurdity of the social climate with a delicate poignancy and a lulling, harmonious dance between the lead guitar and synth. The instrumental is heavenly, sharing that same liminal, dreamy quality with most of the other tracks on the record—which really took off on Tumblr. I think it became so popular because it captures that sense of surrealism that tends to accompany the contemporary world. Healy, in this song, becomes the detached narrator of his crumbling relationship, recounting through a more conversational prose its slow uncoiling at the behest of drugs, adultery, and other quintessential rockstar vices—these proprietors of certain downfalls eventually becoming the only means of coping with their casualties. “Oh, I think my boyfriend’s a nihilist // I think I’ve spent all my money and your friends,” creates an almost doleful surrender I believe a lot of us find ourselves in; the cumulative consequences of living for instant-gratification, ultimately prevent long-term satisfaction. And in a society built upon band-aid solutions, it’s much easier to continue a cycle hoping for different results, or give up hope entirely and let that loss ravage you. This paints a very ugly portrait of mental illness; which is the point. It is ugly, but it exists. “I caught her picking her nose as the crowd cheered for an overdose,” references the romanticization of addiction through the lens of fame, which imposes some degree of dehumanization in spite of its purported allure—that very disconnect is both isolating and enabling. I love the way the lines here sound like bits of palaver more than actual lyrics; it supplements the atmosphere of the song in such a way that it feels like you were there, walking by in passing.
Revisiting this record now, a quick promenade down Doomscroll Lane is veering more into Memory Lane territory. Apparently, I’m not alone in my reluctance to uninstall Tumblr and let go of Phan, greyscale photographs, and flower crowns. The entire internet has fallen victim to The Cruel and Merciless Passage of Time, many adamant about bringing back 2016, widely regarded as the zenith of the preceding decade’s crestfallen glory. A large clade of people remain loyal to preserving Tumblr micro-cultures in particular, despite living in an era where most bygone internet fads fade into the bleak, hungry recesses of new-age brevity, never to be resurrected or even reproduced again, regardless of their personal impact. But the spawns of this particular year live on in our collective memory with a distinct clarity. It seems as though 2016 was a point of succour in man’s conquest of the World Wide Web, once a vast, ungoverned land of mystique—only 10 years ago overflowing with the fruits of our labour at their sweetest and ripest, just about to cross the threshold at the precipice of rot. We tire now of biting into worms, of living lives so miserable many rely on microdosing retail therapy to get through the week and placate that gnawing sensation that life isn’t meant to be this way.
In 2016, the internet was for fun. It was a pastime—not an extension of your real life, home to all of your government records, money, dating pool, the primary mode of communication with literally everyone in your life, and your career prospects. It’s gotten to the point where you quite literally hold your future in the palm of your hand; for some people, their entire livelihood exists online. The sociological, economical, and environmental consequences of the internet continue to metastasize. The politicization of its systemic framework has completely perverted the one positive aspect it had maintained: a breeding ground for the spread and development of the arts, which in turn nurtures human growth, especially in the formative years. That’s what I miss the most about Tumblr and what separates it from other platforms. Out of them all, it most fervently platformed artists, and virality was determined far more by users than algorithms. Tumblr functioned as a scene incubator, harbouring the ideal conditions for users to discover parts of themselves through the sharing, creation, and distribution of art. Those scenes—of which many existed—were populated by artists who perpetuated and embodied the belief that art is not created to be purchased, but to be felt. The last truly organic era of the internet has come and gone in a blaze of hedonistic glory, but we can relive it through the media that defined it, and be the kind of people we’d like to see populating the world. Artworks like I Like It When You Sleep remain as artifacts of that moment—proof of what it felt like to live inside it, and why it mattered.
That album changed my life. It taught my younger self that I wasn’t inherently wrong to feel the way I did about the world, and it allowed me to part with some of the shame I carried for harbouring those emotions, because I finally had the language to do so. Nana carried me through the grief of losing my grandmother; If I Believe You expressed a sentiment I was far too afraid to face on my own; and The Ballad of Me and My Brain captured something I still find myself unable to put into words. Nowadays, I come back to it when I’m well overdue for a reminder of who I am. Amid the influx of noise we’re all overfed with by Silicon Valley spoons, it’s not unheard of to lose sight of ourselves. Who are you, when the big light is off? Sometimes, I cannot tell. But this record strikes such a deep chord within me, has reflected so much back at me, has soundtracked so many pivotal moments in my life, filled me with an insatiable hunger for creation, that I cannot foresee any circumstance where I wouldn’t listen to it regularly. The way this album made me feel the first time I heard it is a feeling I may spend the rest of my life chasing.