10 Blatantly Unfinished Albums (That Were Released Anyway)
7. The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional Form
Like Blur before them, the 1975 opted to go for style over substance with the follow up to their seminal 2018 release, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships. That record hopped between genres with ease, sometimes integrating several musical styles into one song, the strength of its vision ensuring the project somehow managed to sound like a cohesive album despite the differences between individual tracks.
Attempting to capture lightning in a bottle twice, Notes On A Conditional Form - which adds even more genres into the mix - feels like a less successful band trying to rip off A Brief Inquiry rather than being its true follow-up by the same group.
And despite its release date being pushed back numerous times, Notes On A Conditional Form still feels unfinished, the (many) musical interludes - a 1975 staple - feeling more like they're here to fill up space rather than on their own merit, bloating the album to 22 tracks spread over one and a half tedious hours without adding anything valuable to the mix.
Forgettable album tracks transformed what should have been a stellar record (its singles, especially "People" and "Me & You Together Song", are amongst the band's best) into one that's memorable for all the wrong reasons. Their longest record yet (and hopefully ever), Notes somehow ends up having the least amount of songs, and even some fully-realised ideas ("Roadkill", "Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied") fall flat against the 1975's previously high standards.