Not a whole lotta love.
With Me & You Together Song, here The 1975 present us with the newest single to come from their (now delayed) fourth LP Notes On A Conditional Form. As ever, The 1975 are utterly defined by their total indefinable-ness. They are a rock band, a pop group, Marilyn Manson, Marilyn Monroe - rebellious against any attempt at genre compartmentalisation and yet somehow fitting comfortably into the shoes of any musical style they position themselves in emulation to.
With this newest song, Matty Healy's group here finds themselves sounding not entirely dissimilar from Hanson's now reviled mega-hit "MMMBop" (1997), albeit with a slightly more respectable level of production (Mike Crossey) and lyricism. Compared to the angsty/edgy 'People', released earlier in the group's latest album cycle, 'Me & You Together Song' is twee and positive; saccharine and remarkably safe. I'm reluctant to define this album as a simple 'love song' considering the phenomenal "bait-and-switch" the band achieved in the surreptitious heroin metaphor within previous LP's 'It's Not Living If It's Not With You', but I am inclined to describe this new release as quite entirely dull in both its lyrical content and musicianship.
There's nothing really offensive about this new track, though Healy moaning "I had a dream where we had kids / You would cook, I'd do the nappies" comes pretty close. But in truth, I have so very little to say about this track, as this song has so very little to say about itself. The chorus develops nice enough from the verse, some of the lyrics are alright, but throughout 'Me & You Together Song' I could not avoid my disappointment with the tune. The band aren't trying anything special - going through the motions to produce an inoffensively shaped puddle of a song to slide into playlists and forget immediately after.
Simply put, The 1975 can do (and have done) much better than this song. In my mind, there is not a single tune in the 1975 catalogue less deserving of a place in the band's setlist, and that is a shame, considering how this song will likely immediately make its way into the band's live sets.
- not good -
Ben Wheadon is editor and founder of Slow Motion Panic Masters. He is a Welsh musician and English Literature student at King's College, London and he should be writing a dissertation, instead of creating a blog.
Thanks for reading! Slow Motion Panic Masters is a music, arts and culture blog created and edited by Ben Wheadon, a literature student and musician based in London, England. Subscribe to our mailing list below to be alerted every time a post is published on the site.
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