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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hannah Ewens

The 1975’s Brits nomination proves great pop isn’t always drowned out by mindless gym music

Matty Healy of The 1975.
Pop to make you feel and think … Matty Healy of The 1975. Photograph: Matthew Baker/Getty Images

There’s something that naturally happens when you’re over 30 and working in the UK music industry. You’ll be at the gig of a new hype artist, listening to fairly innocuous songs about situationships, boys not calling you back and TikTok and think: “Cool – I finally aged out of this.”

Every generation has this rite of passage – of becoming too past it for most youth culture, and passing the baton backwards to those younger, freer and less experienced. With that being said, I also think that a lot of British pop music nowadays is made for reality TV, iPlayer adverts and the gym. It’s not the actual content of the music that disturbs me but the surface level lyricism, which often only grasps at the emptiest parts of modern existence, of our loneliness and lack of connection.

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