Matty Healy of The 1975 might be music's last true frontman, a bandleader who is equally as talented as a performer as he is a provocateur. Matty can hardly sigh in a radio booth without the press running circles around him looking for the scoop on this week's lament. He has not just corporate media at his fingertips but also social media, and like a true frontman, he wields that power with utter carelessness.
Or so it seems. Perhaps I'm giving credit where it's not due, but I find the character Matty plays in the press so fascinating because the backlash to it only seems to further reinforce the statements he's making.
Much of Matty's persona as a public figure and songwriter is around pointing out the ironies and idiosyncrasies of being a Millennial. The fear of earnestness on "Sincerity is Scary." The desire yet inability to believe in something greater on "If I Believe You." The helplessness in feeling like the only person seeing the world crumbling around you on "People." But he doesn't do any of this to belittle his own generation but instead to show it empathy. He does it to make those emotions more relatable and in many ways help his generation be understood. He paints the Millennial generation as a fractured group riddled with anxieties and almost self-destructive tendencies, but he makes sure no one is more called-out in his songs than himself.
So I really do find it funny when it seems like half of his generation has turned against him, be it because of some offhanded comments a comedian made in a comedy podcast or any series of dickish interview quotes he's had in the last decade or just blind allegiance to Taylor Swift. The man is on your side. Give one listen to "Love It If We Made It," arguably the best political statement in the last decade of pop music. Better yet, give one listen to the five-minute Greta Thunberg speech that opens The 1975's fourth album "Notes on a Conditional Form." He's a liberal. A pretty staunch one. You can criticize him and tell him to shut his mouth sooner all you want. But he's on your side. Don't mistake the character for the man.
Because by cherry picking quotes to paint him as a racist, misogynistic white male in desperate need of a privilege check, you're only further proving his point that the Millennial generation is a fractured group riddled with anxieties and almost self-destructive tendencies.
He's on your side.
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