British indie pop band The 1975 (“Happiness”) released “I’m In Love With You” on Sept. 1, the third single to its upcoming studio album “Being Funny in a Foreign Language.” The song debuted during its recent return to touring, which was put on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 1975 has prided itself on its fusion of pop’s bright, catchy hooks with the lyrical craft and musical experimentation of the “alternative” label. While its last album, “Notes on a Conditional Form,” went everywhere genre-wise, from the shocking hardcore punk of “People” to the garage-inspired electronica of “Frail State of Mind,” the singles to its upcoming album seem to suggest at least some grounded consistency. “Part of the Band” was a folksy chamber pop introspection with Matty Healy’s trademark clever lyrics, while “Happiness” made the band’s name more apt as an homage to ‘70s funk rock, if a little trend-riding.
To any avid listener of pop music in the past five years, the phrases “folksy chamber pop” and “homage to the ‘70s” may evoke the specter of a certain ubiquitous producer, Jack Antonoff (“Minions: The Rise of Gru”), who snatched The 1975 into his never ending roster of pop acts lassoed into stylistic adjacence. In “I’m In Love With You,” The 1975 jump head first into pop rock sentimentalism, a direction that is hardly a detour. However, the song’s brightness and lightheartedness reach into the territory of summer heatwaves and dehydration. This is fitting, because the song sounds like it belongs in a Pepsi ad, and it should definitely stay there.
It opens with jangly guitars reminiscent of Vampire Weekend (“Father of the Bride”) that usher in lead singer Healy’s typical electrified vocals and synths that sound straight out of a cartoon stock audio for wind chimes. Healy’s ultra-English voice has the cultural pride of a Britpop star but with the realness of whatever the posh equivalent of a “bro” is. The nauseous chorus brings together an overproduced cacophony of repeated “I’s” and pleas of “I’m in love with you,” like an overdubbed Harry Styles (“Harry’s House”). Bubblegum pop is certainly a genre worthy of appreciation and acclaim, though Healy’s vocals of wedding singer optimism evoke less of the orchestration of Brian Wilson (“Pet Sounds”) and more like, well, Hanson (“MMMBop”).
Songwriting pair Healy and George Daniel have curated some lyrical bops, such as the socially conscious “Love It If We Made It” and even their recent single “Part of the Band.” But here, the lyrics have reclined back in favor of cultivating a classic vibe: the confessional lover. Healy’s words describe the anticipation of admitting his love to a seemingly oblivious subject.
Since the object of Healy’s affection is, title-wise, “you,” we do not get much detail as to what is getting the normally extroverted Healy so flustered. We do get one implication and it is a doozy. In the bridge, Healy describes the lover showing him her “black girl thing / pretending [he] don’t know what it is.” While Healy’s lack of racial discrimination in his dating life is something to model, does it not seem a bit tone-deaf for a white male artist, a wealthy one at that, to describe his lover’s personality as a “black girl thing?”
The song works off of a vibe that you need to already drown yourself in to reach its level of saccharine overload. The band’s fifth studio album is scheduled to be released on Oct. 14 through Dirty Hit.
