One thing each of the four albums from The 1975 have in common is that they all begin with a track titled “The 1975.” The self-titled track from their latest album, Notes On A Conditional Form, features Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg speaking about the ecological state of the planet. Today, they have decided to share a visual for the track. The clip plays out like a lyric video, with Thunberg’s words laid atop visuals of our planet, mounds of garbage, and other stylized clips.
Matty Healy previously told Apple Music of the song, “We were talking about how we were going to do that statement — the same statement that we always make musically — and we wanted it to be us at our most modern. That first track always has to be us checking in. That got us into the conversation of what is the most modern statement, or who has the most modern statement, and Greta was the decision. I think it sounds like how a lot of us feel. There’s a lot of hope in it, but it’s quite a sombre piece of music. It’s very 1975 in the way that it’s quite beautiful superficially but also quite sad, quite pretty, but also quite ominous. Greta has a lot of reach, but I really wanted to see her exist formally in pop culture, not just as an anecdote of somebody.”
Watch the “The 1975” video above, and read our review of Notes On A Conditional Form here.
Notes On A Conditional Form is out now via Dirty Hit. Get it here.