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The 1975 are an English rock band formed in 2002 in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Now based in Manchester, the band consists of lead vocalist, producer, lyricist and rhythm guitarist Matthew "Matty" Healy, lead guitarist Adam Hann, bassist Ross MacDonald, and drummer/producer George Daniel.
The band's origins trace to their attendance at high school and playing together as teenagers. Gigs organised by a council worker led the band to formally sign with Dirty Hit and Polydor Records. The band opened for several major acts and released a series of extended plays (Facedown, Sex, Music for Cars, IV) throughout 2012 before releasing their self-titled debut album (2013), which included the popular singles "Sex", "Chocolate", and "Robbers" and reached number one in the United Kingdom.
Their second album, I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it (2016), reached No. 1 in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Following the touring cycle for the record, the band announced their third album under the working title of Music for Cars, before going on hiatus again throughout 2017.
Returning in 2018, the band announced that the album had evolved into their third campaign cycle, consisting of their third and fourth studio albums. The first, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (2018), was released to widespread critical acclaim, and became their third No. 1 album in the UK. The second, Notes on a Conditional Form, was released in May 2020 and became their fourth consecutive No. 1 album in the UK.
The 1975 has garnered acclaim for their exploration of an eclectic range of genres such as pop rock, synth-pop, R&B, funk rock, electropop, forms of electronic music (such as UK Garage, 2-step and ambient), and forms of rock music (such as shoegaze, post-punk and post-rock), as well as elements of jazz, soul and gospel. Frontman Matty Healy's energetic and eccentric stage presence has also garnered acclaim, as has his lyricism due to its deeply personal, self-aware, self-deprecating, and often observational nature; his lyrical analyses of politics, society and culture have been praised, notable in songs such as "Love It If We Made It", "Loving Someone", "Sincerity Is Scary", and "People".
History[]
Origins and formation[]
Matthew Healy (son of Denise Welch and Tim Healy), Ross MacDonald, Adam Hann and George Daniel met at Wilmslow High School near Manchester as teenagers and began to play music in 2002.
- "There was this idealistic hippy council worker who started to put on these gigs for kids, to form bands. I remember the guitarist Adam Hann came up to me and said he wanted to play one of these shows. We started playing, doing covers of punk songs and pop songs and just started out doing that. Then once we eventually wrote a song, I decided, well, this is a lot better than going to work – or going to school, for that matter. We started from then and we’ve been making music together since we were about 15 – George was 14, actually, when we started."
After Hann invited the members to form a band, they passed their early days covering punk songs in a local club. Healy was originally the drummer, but took over vocals after the previous singer left to start another band. Daniel was recruited as the new drummer to complete the final line-up.
- "[We met] in school. It started out like there was this girl in my form who was going out with a guy in the year above, Adam Hann. And he came up to me and said do I want to play drums in his band because there’s this thing that goes on at the Macclesfield Senior Citizen Hall where they let kids in to do a gig. So I was like, alright. Me on drums didn’t work, so then we found George [Daniel] who’s the only kid who can play drums, he’s like the weirdest kid ever. That worked and that was ten years ago."
Having previously performed and released material under various guises including Talkhouse, The Slowdown, Bigsleep, and Drive Like I Do, the band eventually settled on the name The 1975. Healy recounts that the name was inspired by scribblings found in the back page of an old Beat poetry book dated "1 June, The 1975":
- "I met an artist on Holiday. It sounds a bit more bohemian, idealistic than maybe it was but I met him and ended up leaving with a book that must of been treated almost like a diary by a previous owner, so when I read it there was all these mad scribblings and notes, and the person had dated it "the 1st of June The 1975". Then when it came to naming the band it just seemed like quite an appropriate title, you know."[1]
The band first appeared as The 1975 in January 2012, in the run up to the release of their first EP and after signing to UK based Indie label Dirty Hit. They performed as The 1975 for the first time in February as a support act for General Fiasco on their nationwide tour.