Are you a hopeless or troubled romantic? Well then Sex and Relationships columnist Dasha Pebly may have just the album of the Summer for you.
Glass Animals fourth studio album, I Love You So F***ing Much (or ILYSFM for short), released on the 19th of July, 2024. In light of my over 110k minutes of listening to Glass Animals, claiming the album is one of the best love albums may be contrary to “unbiased reporting”. For the sake of journalistic integrity, I'll settle for the more modest assertion that ILYSFM is about love, but is so much more than an album about romance. It's an album that explores how others' love changes us, and how our own love is rarely a simple thing.
I’d like to take some time out of your day to introduce you to the ten tracks in this album. My hope is that it may inspire you to give the album a listen. I really do think I love You So F***ing Much has something for everyone.
‘Show Pony’ is the opening track and sets the stage for the album. It’s a song sung by a son witnessing his mother’s dysfunctional relationship. Infused with righteous indignation, the listener comes to understand a sacrificial mother and too-absent father. This is the framework for love that the son will be raised with. Family is where we first learn love, what it is and how it looks. It’s our prelude, shaping everything after it.
‘whatthehellishappening’ follows up, a breathless track that paints love as a heist. It is arguably the happiest song on the album, documenting the unwitting fall into love that many are familiar with. The uncertainty is thrilling, but not uncomfortable. They are beginning to become someone new together, witnessing and shaping each other's transformation.
‘Creatures in Heaven’ draws the listener into a warm, intimate moment. There’s a dreamy tint, this moment is sublime but you only truly appreciate it now that it’s gone. The love that was there was secure, comfortable, and perfect. Hindsight has frozen time, allowing for a true savouring of what was had. To me, it’s a romanticization of that innocent, honeymoon phase of love. Its perfection is illusory, but we can’t help but to return to it in our mind and wish for softer days.
The people we love, after all, are usually the best equipped to hurt us.
The bitter intensity of ‘Wonderful Nothing’ points to a love that isn’t lost, but has been turned rabid. Under Bayley's scathing lyrics is a raw love begging for reciprocation. A dog kicked one too many times will bite, but there’s still (however perversely) a longing for the fleeting moments of praise and care. With its final line of “but I still love you”, this track captures the interplay of love and hatred, and how the two are hardly mutually exclusive. The people we love, after all, are usually the best equipped to hurt us.
‘A Tear in Space (Airlock)’ is the war for a relationship that is doomed. It captures perfectly the struggle against some seemingly cosmic force, hoping to God you find a foothold somewhere. You have the sense you should give up, but you're too hooked to let go.
‘I Can’t Make You Fall in Love Again’ reaches back into adolescence and is a personal reckoning with abandonment. The song is a release of responsibility, the radical acceptance that whatever love was lost, was out of Bayley’s control. There are times we ask ourselves what could have been done better, and the answer really is nothing.
‘How I Learned to Love the Bomb’ describes discovering the dark side of someone you thought you knew very well. The song balances the tension of this, as the initial shock evolves into acceptance. More than that, an illicit enjoyment (a love for the bomb) festers. There's something alluring about the danger, which this song delves into.
Our perceived inferiority fuels self-destructive behaviour that erodes the relationship. The relationship crumbles, leaving only remnants of its simple, intimate beauty.
‘White Roses’ is that mantra we get in our heads, the belief in our own unlovability. We reduce ourselves to our flaws. Our perceived inferiority fuels self-destructive behaviour that erodes the relationship. The relationship crumbles, leaving only remnants of its simple, intimate beauty.
With its cheerful sound, 'On the Run’ stories the anxious-avoidant need to flee when confronted with trouble. It's the lie we tell ourselves that leaving will be best for everyone, when in reality we're only avoiding discomfort. We could stay, work things out together. There’s no true reckoning with the issues that are inspiring leaving, thus no growth. The decision to run is subject to inner debate. This solution ends the pain only superficially. There is no more conflict, but at great sacrifice.
‘Lost in the Ocean’ closes the album with a lament. Bayley’s lyrics depict the aimless, all consuming nature of love. He’s drowning in devotion. Despite his suffocation, he still floats adrift. Waiting, hoping. After all, what else is love if not patience and hope?
Through the course of the album, the listener confronts love’s underbelly. It becomes clear that each relationship- even when it brings suffering and disappointment- is valued in its own way. In essence, I Love You So F***ing Much reveals the richness of love as being in the experience itself. Love, be it romantic or otherwise, will inevitably be a source of pain. This is an obvious fact of the human condition. This vulnerability is precisely what is so transformative and beautiful about love. What Glass Animals does most magnificently is elucidate deeply complex aspects of being human in such a constrained medium.
Each song is paradoxical, juggling feelings and themes that aren’t obviously able to co-exist. It’s a very real account of what it is to care, and to be cared for. With their deliciously unique sound and unparalleled poeticism, Glass Animals has produced an album that is, frankly, so human. They verbalise complicated and ultimately scary feelings in a way that is beautiful to listen to. I don’t doubt I’ve failed to adequately capture the brilliance of this album. It wasn’t my goal to. My hope is simply that I might inspire others to check the album out, and maybe, like myself, come to love and resonate with I Love You So F***ing Much.