Are we at a point where we are ready to accept a genre titled “post-Artic Monkeys”? That may be a stretch, but it’s what Matty Healy of the 1975 is ready to call his brand of music.
The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has spoken to NME about his group being “post-Arctic Monkeys” – and how they could “still be the most important band” of the decade ahead.
Speaking to NME for this week’s Big Read cover story to mark the release of their fifth album, ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’, Healy discussed the legacy and future of The 1975, as well as how he feels about being labelled as a ‘band’.
Healy once hailed Arctic Monkeys as “the band of the 2000s” with The 1975 the defining band of the 2010s. Healy recently said: “I think we could still be the most important band of the ‘20s, – I’ve got a prediction that we will be, but we’re starting to get into a semantic argument”.
Healy would then go on to say that the “Arctic Monkeys are still relevant and making amazing records and are still a band” who could “always be around if they wanted to” (as well as revealing that he’s “obsessed with bands like Fontaines D.C.”), but argued that culture is no longer necessarily aligned with the idea of “white guys with guitars changing the world” and that The 1975 shouldn’t perhaps even be considered as a traditional band.
To add fuel to the potential fire of the beef, he continued: “With us, you need to take us out of the ‘bands’ world and put us next to Lana [Del Rey], Taylor [Swift], Frank Ocean and Kendrick [Lamar]. These are artists that have existed for a decade, and no one is asking them questions about why they’re still relevant. We’re only a band in form. We’re a lot less formal than the last traditional band, which is Arctic Monkeys. We’re post-Arctic Monkeys.”
