| "Love It If We Made It" | ||||
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| Single by the 1975 | ||||
| from the album A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships | ||||
| Released | 19 July 2018 | |||
| Genre | Electronic rock | |||
| Length | 4:13 | |||
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| The 1975 singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Love It If We Made It" on YouTube | ||||
"Love It If We Made It" is a song by English band the 1975 from their third studio album, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (2018). The song was written by Matty Healy, George Daniel, Adam Hann and Ross MacDonald, while the production was handled by the former two. It was released on 19 July 2018 by Dirty Hit and Polydor Records as the second single from the album. Daniel created the song's production in 2015, while Healy collected daily tabloid headlines from 2016 to 2018 to use as lyrics. They became too humorous, so he rewrote the song to summarize the volatile social and political events in that period, using Prince's "Sign o' the Times" as an inspiration.
A mid-tempo electro-rock ballad, "Love It If We Made It" contains sophisti-pop melodies, harp-like arpeggios, disco riffs and staccato chords. The song also incorporates elements of synth-pop, power pop, funk and pop music. Thematically, it deals with the vices of modern humanity, hypocrisy and disinformation, while the lyrics reference multiple events such as the US national anthem protests, the death of Alan Kurdi, the death of Lil Peep, and the Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape, among others. Healy delivers the track in a stream of consciousness style using a mixture of shouting, screaming and rapping.
Upon release, "Love It If We Made It" received widespread acclaim from contemporary music critics, many of whom deemed it both an album highlight and the record's overall thesis statement. Praise was directed at the song's themes, lyrics, production and Healy's vocal delivery. The track was included on numerous critics year-end lists, and lauded as the best song of 2018 by several publications, including The New York Times and Pitchfork. It later won the 2019 Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song. It is generally considered among the best songs of the 2010s, a generational anthem and the millennial equivalent to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", with several contemporary critics referring to the track as the 1975's greatest song.
Commercially, "Love It If We Made It" peaked at number ten on the US Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and number 33 on the UK Singles Chart, while also reaching the top 50 in Scotland, Ireland and Canada. The song was later certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Two music videos were released to accompany the track. The first, created in a vertical format, was released to Spotify on 12 August 2018. The second, directed by Adam Powell, was released on 15 October. The visual depicts the 1975 performing the song as neon-coloured silhouettes, interspersed with found footage-style clips of war and significant pop culture events from the 2010s. The video received positive reviews and was later nominated for Best Rock Video at the 2019 UK Music Video Awards and the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards.