A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

• Portuguese Translation

‘The Context Of The Digital: A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships’ is the title of Gene McHugh’s essay. Talking about the inspiration behind the record’s title, Matty says:

Not necessarily [inspired] by the essay itself, but by the title – it was curated [by Omar Kholeif] into a book called ‘You Are Here: Art After The Internet’. At the time, I lived in quite a hipstery part of London, so if you get the train from Clapton into Central there’s normally a lot of arty types on the train. So I just happened to be sat next to somebody who must have been reading that book, because that was the page that I glanced at, and the sentence just made a lot of sense. And then I went and read the essay, but to be honest with you, I wasn’t making a record about the internet. I just wanted to make a record about life and about the human experience, and because the internet is so total within that, I kind of couldn’t avoid making a record about the internet.

The title of this album stems from the heavy use of technology in today’s society. The band had been posting a lot of tech related quotes, pictures, and phrases on social media prior to the release of Give Yourself a Try, and the new album will put a large focus on examining the effects of so much technology in the modern world.

Most of it. George [Daniel] wrote the instrumental to “Love It If We Made It” in 2015. You know where Dirty Hit [the band’s label] is? Grenfell’s round the corner. A year before that happened, I’d ask Ed [Blow, label co-manager] every day if he’d go to the newsagents for tabloids. My idea for “Love It If We Made It” was a list of press headlines. Then Grenfell happened. I was so upset. That’s when the song became this outward exorcism.

— Matty Healy, The Vulture.

“I had this profound-but-also-not-profound realization that this whole thing outside of this — all of our communication with other people — is mediated through the internet. That’s not even an interesting thing to point out, right? But say that to somebody ten years ago. If you make a record about any kind of relationship, you’re making a record about the internet. Neil Young isn’t gonna put out a new song about missing his lover where he references FaceTime — it’s too modern. In order to be truly honest about how one has a long-distance relationship, you have to talk about these things.”

— Matty Healy, The Fader.

This album peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200 for the week of December 15, 2018.