A band that has had the kind of staggering effect on today’s indie rock landscape and attained a rabid fanbase like few artists since Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian, The 1975 grabbed hold of their audience and have refused to release them ever since.
Dividing opinion among rock ‘n’ roll puritans but with an undeniable place in pop culture, the relentless touring and the approval that they’ve garnered in the wake of their debut album has made full blown stars out of Matty Healy’s outfit.
Seemingly unwilling to grow stale in any conceivable way, the band’s sound and aesthetic has underwent a seismic shift on ‘Love Me’, the first single from their sophomore LP.
Laced with the funk influenced eccentricities of Bowie’s Young Americans/Thin White Duke era, ‘Love Me’ is a bombastic number which is draped in a high gloss sheen but still sounds unmistakably like the band that so many fell head over heels in love with. Wheeling out a chorus that is destined to be lovingly bellowed back at them in fields across the country come next summer, it’s peculiar synth lines and insistent percussion aid in producing a track which befits a band that seems hasty to shed their skin and reinvent themselves.
Its accompanying visuals are every bit as bombastic and demonstrate just how drastic this overhaul is, replacing the relatively staid videos of the past with a decadent affair that features copious amounts of champagne, cardboard cutouts of various pop stars and a healthy dose of 80’s style excess.
Watch the video below: