Some gave it two stars. But it went triple platinum. Somehow both of those feel fair.

Four songs here are perfect pop singles. CHOCOLATE, SEX, SETTLE DOWN, GIRLS. Each built to the same specification: a guitar figure you can hum before the first chorus lands, a drum sound borrowed wholesale from 1985, and Matty Healy singing about being young and broke and slightly awful with total conviction. All four were released as singles. That is not a coincidence, and it is most of what's wrong with the other twelve tracks.

It helps to know this isn't really a debut. The 1975 formed in 2002, struggled to secure label support, so their manager built Dirty Hit and did it himself. By the time they reached Motor Museum in Liverpool they had four EPs out in ten months. Nothing here sounds tentative because none of it was new to them.

Every radio single on this record is perfect. Everything else is weather.

The trouble is what fills the gaps. M.O.N.E.Y. is the only full song I actively skip, three and a half minutes of glitchy R&B pastiche that sounds like a band proving they own more records than you do. The interludes are harmless... THE 1975, AN ENCOUNTER, and 12 are connective tissue, and at barely a minute each they cost nothing, despite also offering nothing.

SHE WAY OUT, MENSWEAR, and PRESSURE are the real problem: full-length songs that do their job and leave, leaving you with the thought that the record is slightly bloated. Healy wanted a record where every track could be a single. He was right about four of them.

History has been kind to this record, and it's aged well. The hits stand up to this day, and the rest is still fine, while not noteworthy.