After Over a Year, The 1975's 'Love It If We Made It' Is More Relevant than Ever

One of the most politically active bands in Britain, The 1975, is releasing its brand new album - ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ - in April 2020. With that, and a new single dropping today, January 16th, I thought it would be good to look back on one of their most thought-provoking and uncomfortable songs to date.

‘Love It If We Made It’ disguises itself as an upbeat, jazzy track filled with synth and saxophones while the political message of the song makes itself obvious to anyone who actually listens. The lyrics are full of constant examples of atrocities, real-world violence, hate, and suffering. Matty Healy references the likes of the Grenfell Tower fire, discrimination, the death of Alan Kurdi, extremist religion, the war in the Middle East, and global warming.

His lyrics, while appearing catchy, are equally dark and blunt. With phrases such as “poison me daddy”, Healy mocks the absurdity of internet culture while also referencing the terrible Salisbury incident in 2018 when a girl and her father were poisoned by Russian nationals. Healy says that putting the phrases “poison me” and “daddy” together is a good way of showcasing how you can find both absurd sexual internet culture right next to something like BBC News.

WARNING: This video may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy.

A lot of analysis lies in the music video for the song itself, which is filled to the brim in colours of the rainbow yet overlayed by this VHS and shadow format. While you’d usually associate the bright and vibrant colours used with happiness, joy or freedom, the video uses them as a literal way to showcase a more exaggerated version of ‘rose-coloured glasses’ where people see the world as a rainbow but it’s just layered on top of atrocities and hate.

And I believe that while this video was released a year and a half ago, it is more relevant than ever. We are in the middle of a relations crisis between the United States and Iran, putting the countries on the brink of War. Matty’s lyrics surprisingly reference an event like this with one phrase of the song saying “the war has been incited and guess what you’re all invited.”

A common theme in ‘Love It If We Made It’ is that “modernity has failed us” and I believe it’s extremely relevant. The growing complexity of technology is both a blessing and a curse, with recent headlines in the news this year being things like Apple refusing to give the FBI access to a mass shooter’s iPhone, or the announcement of Uber and Hyundai working on flying taxis at CES 2020.

“Modernity has failed us” is a recurring theme that blames our growing issues on the rise of technology, but not just regular consumer tech but also military equipment such as drones, nuclear weapons, and the growing use of cyberattacks, which have been a massive problem in relations between already-tense countries.

Just a few days into 2020, internet culture made jokes about an impending hypothetical World War 3 as a result of the United States assassinating Iran’s top general Qasem Soleimani. While the world reacted to one of the most significant deaths of the century, social media made jokes about being drafted and going to war. It’s this insane parallel between technology and atrocity that ‘Love It If We Made It’ dwells on.

The video shows all these incredibly awful events that have happened in the past decade, but they fly past us like someone is changing the channel. Each clip only lasts a few seconds in the video, but it’s enough for it to be engrained in our memories. The shortness of these videos obviously represents us flicking through channels and being greeted to constant bad news, but also the fact that the amount of hate in the world is overwhelming. The VHS style filter over the videos shows this as well.

So it’s important to look back on The 1975’s music video for ‘Love It If We Made It’ and really take in the message it has been sending to fans ever since it came out in late 2018. With the band’s new album on the way in the coming months, I’m intrigued to see what else they will address.

Their most recent singles, ‘People’, ‘The 1975’, ‘Frail State of Mind’ and ‘I Like America and America Likes Me’ have all addressed issues such as gun laws, global warming, anxiety, and discrimination.