Primarily a pop rock band, The 1975 got into many genres including synth-pop, indie rock, and country over the years. Despite this broad mix, Matty Healy recently told the ‘Doom Scroll’ podcast that they are not interested in taking a heavier direction with their music.
“We were hated for essentially being a band that was the opposite of heavy,” the singer shared. “And I was like, well, after [1998’s] ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ came out — [it was] the last punk album — it knew that.”
He continued, “Refused — they split up because they were politically so different… And in their last show, the cops came. It makes me want to cry; I get chills thinking about it. The cops came in, and all of their fans turned around and shouted the line from ‘Rather Be Dead’: ‘I’d rather be alive.’ And they’re just shouting, ‘I’d rather be alive. I’d rather be alive,’ as Refused physically disbanded.”
“So, when I saw that, I thought, ‘I can’t do something heavy that touches on that.’ Because for me… unless you’re Glassjaw, Converge, Refused, or further than that, heavy is f*cking lame. So, the reason we’re not heavy — and we can do heavy all day long — but we’re not because it wasn’t new. We wanted to be something quite new.”
The 1975’s style hasn’t always gone over well with fans and other musicians, who criticized them for not being rock enough. Last year, Noel Gallagher voiced his annoyance at Healy’s win in the Brit Awards’ rock/alternative category, saying, “It’s just a pity guitar music has become marginalized. You’ve either got to be rock, or that f*cking [The] 1975. At the BRITs, The 1975 won Best Rock or some f*cking sh*t.”
He went on, “I was watching it with my kids, two teenage lads, thinking, ‘Is it me being a grumpy old man, or is this sh*t?’ They were both going, ‘Oh no, this is f*cking sh*t.’ The 1975, Best Rock Band? Someone needs to re-define that immediately, because that is… I don’t know what that is, but it’s certainly not f*cking rock. Whatever rock is, that’s not it.“
The 1975 last released their pop rock-synthwave album, ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language,’ in 2022. Recently, they also collaborated on Charli XCX’s new remix album, ‘Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat.’