SINGLE/MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: The 1975 “Love Me”
I didn’t know any 15 year olds that expected their bands to blow up. It’s something to talk about. Fame and fortune are cool, but they’re side effects. Most kids just wanted to play, make music and have it appreciated by more than just their circles and families.
Side effects happen though. The 1975’s first LP topped the charts in the UK. So “next thing you’ll find you’re reading about yourself on a plane.” That’s a change. That’s fame. Musicians are like superheroes, putting on capes to step on stage and be seen. Success locks secretaries in their super-suits.
Now we’re two years after the accident, and Matt Healy has had time to chew on fame. “Love Me” is his answer.
Open to guitar. Sarcastic and sassy, a few chords and a ‘fuck you’ attitude. Every face on the band looks like they just stepped out of the 90’s, but the music has the infectious groove of an 80’s classic. Something doesn’t line up.
The models smile with floating guitars, the band’s big bubble letters stand ready to pop, and the celebs are paper pastiches of themselves. Even Healy’s silhouette seems to dance just for the show. Maybe nothing lines up. But the music goes on.
You can’t quit your “Karcrashian panache” in show biz, even if that means “a bag of bash” to keep the thing going. So for the first half of the video, we see false passion, a half assed show. That same song and dance goes on until one key moment, before the second chorus. “We’ve just come to represent a decline in the standards of what we accept! / Yeah?! ...Yeah?!? ... Yeah?!?! … No.”
And what a no that is! The music goes on, but the attitude changes. The chorus hits, and makes a whole lot of sense. The 1975 is here to make music, and if you love them for it, that’s awesome. With that single, defiant no, Healy and the band stop making a show and start reveling in it. Everything becomes a whole lot of fun - dancing with cute gals and hot tubbing with beautiful dudes, playing with selfie sticks and models’ legs. The trappings of fame can be pretty cool if you embrace them. So if the music biz nowadays requires you to pose with pretty models and shake your self shirtless, that’s awesome too.
Keep doing you guys. Take your own advice and “sack off your calendar”. Put the people “on their feet”! Play the game, love the fame, but don’t ever forget why you’re doing it. Enjoy the ride dudes :)
Karcrashian Panache. And this song rocks.
Written By: Connor Meinert
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