The 1975’s “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)” Video Is A Surreal Stop Making Sense Tribute

The 1975’s “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)” Video Is A Surreal Stop Making Sense Tribute

Ambitious and/or pretentious pop-rock lightning rods the 1975, one of the best and/or most insufferable acts in music right now, just released their latest conversation starter A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships last Friday. Today they’re sharing yet another video from the project, and to call it a good one would be an understatement.

Written by 1975 frontman Matty Healy and directed by Warren Fu, the video for bright and shiny ’80s pop track “It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You” — recovering addict Healy’s love song to heroin — is a surreal tribute to Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense.

The clip’s head-fuck narrative features Healy stepping in and out of a film set built to resemble Stop Making Sense, director Jonathan Demme’s classic Talking Heads concert film. After waking up from a dream backstage — or did he wake up?! — Healy walks onstage and begins performing in the role of David Byrne, at which point reality-melting hijinks ensue. At one point, the clip intersects with group’s charming “Sincerity Is Scary” from a bizarre angle: A second version of Healy walks into the Stop Making Sense scenario, gets confused, wanders through a door into the “Sincerity Is Scary” set (with full costume change), gets even more confused, and finally pops back into the Stop Making Sense tribute for some further disorientation.

This is the fifth video from A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships following the aforementioned “Sincerity Is Scary” plus “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME,” “Love It If We Made It,” and “Give Yourself A Try.” Watch it below.

A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships is out now on Dirty Hit/Interscope. In a new Beats 1 interview, Healy tells Matt Wilkinson that the next 1975 album Notes On A Conditional Form will be out before August.

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