After two long, grueling years without new The 1975 music, the indie band is releasing their fifth studio album soon. The band deleted all of its old Instagram photos back in February and cryptically wrote on Instagram on June 1, “Your new album. Your new era. Your old friends. The 1975.” Matty Healy, the lead singer of The 1975 (and my personal favorite guy who keeps showing up places), also deleted all of his personal Instagram pictures and has only posted several graphics and black-and-white images to date. The 33-year-old British frontman posted a black-and-white photo of himself on June 2, saying, “Hey guys. I have missed you. The 1975 is back now.”
Since The 1975 is my favorite band of all time (if you’re also a fellow The 1975 fan, please DM me on Instagram so we can be friends), I decided to do a deep dive through Reddit threads, Twitter theories, and band members’ enigmatic posts to deduce what we can expect from this upcoming album. Here are five (well-researched) predictions, including the album’s release date, the album title, and how many tracks will be on it.
- The album will be released on July 7.
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The 1975 has teased July 7 as being a “significant date” in regards to their new album, leading many fans (myself included, obviously) to believe that the album will be released on that date.
Fans have also spotted posters in London featuring black-and-white images of Healy along with the date July 7. Coincidence? I think not!
However, on June 13, The 1975 posted to their official Twitter account, writing, “The 1975 – Part Of The Band. 7 July,” which led some fans to believe that the band will be releasing a single titled “Part Of The Band” on July 7 rather than an entire album. While this is a valid argument, I’m trying to be an optimist, so I’m still going to bet that the entire album will be released on July 7.
- BFIAFL will be the album title.
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An entire Reddit thread is dedicated to deciphering what the new The 1975 album will be titled. On all of the band members’ personal Instagram accounts, they posted individual images that spell out “BFIAFL.” Several Reddit users have guessed that the album name will be Being Funny In A Foreign Language, or BFIAFL for short, which is also allegedly the name of a song that was meant to be on the last album, Notes On A Conditional Form (which is also nicknamed NOACF).
On the off-chance that BFIAFL is not the name of the album, it will at least be the name of a song on the album, mark my words.
- This album will have a more sophisticated feel.
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Based on the band’s marketing for their upcoming fifth studio album, this album will likely have a more sophisticated, and perhaps even old-timey, feel. Most of the photos that are being posted of the band are in black-and-white, offering a retro, vintage vibe. In one image posted on Twitter, The 1975 band members are wearing long coats and scarves and laughing by the Thames Estuary.
On one of the photos posted to Healy’s personal Instagram account, there is a crest that reads “MFC,” referencing “Music For Cars,” one of the band’s earlier EPs. Crests were commonly used between the 11th to 17th centuries and usually sat on top of a coat of arms, which were utilized to identify families or individuals.
- Phoebe Bridgers will be featured (again) on the album.
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In October 2021, Healy was the surprise opener for singer Phoebe Bridgers at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Towards the end of his set, Healy invited Bridgers onstage and they sang “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America” from Notes On A Conditional Form for the first time live together. I had the pleasure of being at this concert and nearly fainted from the sheer fact that I was in the presence of two of my favorite artists singing together, but that’s beside the point.
Considering that Healy had remained fairly out of the public eye until that very moment, I have an inkling that that night was a significant event, and that we can expect another song featuring Bridgers on The 1975’s upcoming album. During the concert in October, Healy gushed about Bridgers, saying to her, “You’re the most wonderful, beautiful person. And you’re also my favorite artist.”
If Bridgers is Healy’s favorite artist, wouldn’t he clearly want her to be on the band’s album again? Seems like an obvious answer to me.
- There will be 19 tracks on the album.
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The 1975 is known for having longer albums, and this next album will likely be no exception. Their 2013 self-titled album The 1975 has 16 tracks, their 2016 album I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it has 17 tracks, their 2017 live album DH00278 has 24 tracks, their 2018 album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships has 15 tracks, and their last album Notes On A Conditional Form has 22 tracks.
Since the band hasn’t released new music in over two years, this next album will likely be on the lengthier side. With this in mind, I predict that there will be 19 tracks on the album. The way I came to this conclusion is a bit far-fetched, I’ll admit — essentially, I took all of their albums (including DH00278, even though it’s a live album) and found the mean of the number of tracks to get 18.8, which I rounded up to 19. Does this make sense? Not really, but in my head it does. I guess that’s why I didn’t major in math in college.