The 1975’s Matty Healy shares list of his favourite albums including a Glasgow classic

Healy shared the list of his favourite albums with fans via a new post on Tumblr which included an album from Glasgow band The Blue Nile.

The 35-year-old hasn’t shied away his love for the band as he told Far Out Magazine: “This is the best record of the ’80s. Well, actually, f****** hell … no, that is my favourite record of the ’80s! The Blue Nile are my favourite band of all time. They’re f****** amazing. Musically, they’ve inspired me so much. There’s so much drama. It’s perfect nighttime music. It’s beautiful, romantic music with British sensibilities. The sounds on it are just amazing. And it’s called Hats! What a f****** cool name for a record!”

His love for the band even influenced a song one of Taylor Swift’s most recent album The Tortured Poets Department which was released in April 2024. The song “Guilty as Sin” has a very interesting opening lyric that Glaswegian music fans picked up on right away.

In the opening verse, Taylor Swift sings: “Drowning in the Blue Nile He sent me "Downtown Lights”, I hadn’t heard it in a while My boredom’s bone deep, This cage was once just fine Am I allowed to cry?”

The song concludes with the lyric: “He sent me "Downtown Lights”, I hadn’t heard it in a while, Am I allowed to cry?”

The reference is to The Blue Nile’s 1989 song, The Downtown Lights, the lead single from their second album Hats, widely considered to be among the finest records that Glasgow has produced. The Downtown Lights reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart in early 1990, becoming the group's only single chart entry in the United States.

Ahead of the album launch, Taylor Swift fans had already speculated that three tracks on the album were written about her relationship with The 1975 frontman Matt Healy - I Can Fix Him, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, Guilty as Sin. The two singers briefly dated in 2023 having first met each other back in 2014.

Matty Healy’s favourite albums are:

• Nation Of Ulysses – ’13 Point Program to Destroy America’
• Compound Red – ‘Press Play and Record: Songs Played and Recorded by Compound Red’
• Nahawa Doumbia – ‘La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 3’
• Brainiac – ‘Bonsai Superstar’
• Brainiac – ‘Hissing Prigs in Static Couture’
• Brainiac – ‘Electro-Shock For President EP’
• I Hate Myself – ‘Ten Songs’
• Little Feat – ‘Feats Don’t Fail Me Now’
• Little Feat – ‘Dixie Chicken’
• The Meters – ‘Rejuvenation’
• This Heat – ‘Made Available’
• Modest Mouse – ‘The Lonesome Crowded West’
• Daryl Johns – ‘Daryl Johns’
• Howlin’ Wolf – ‘The Howlin Wolf Album’
• Unwound – ‘Repetition’
• Lil B – ‘6 Kiss’
• Faces – ‘A Nod Is As Good As A Wink….To a Blind Horse’
• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – ‘Trout Mask Replica’
• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – ‘Clear Spot’
• The Fall – ‘Hip Priest And Kamerads’
• The Fall – ‘John Peel Session 15/9/81’
• Robbie Basho – ‘Venus In Cancer’
• The Streets – ‘Original Pirate Material’
• Loren Connors – ‘Evangeline’
• Suicide – ‘The Second Album + The First Rehearsal Tapes’
• Sigur Rós – ‘Takk’
• Glen Branca – ‘Ascension’
• Theoretical Girls – ‘Theoretical Girls’
• Trent Renor & Atticus Ross – ‘The Social Network’
• Pesky – ‘Smells Like Tween Spirit’
• Boards Of Canada – ‘Music Has The Right To Children’
• Bob Dylan – ‘Highway 61 Revisited’
• Bob Dylan – ‘Blood On The Tracks’
• Bob Dylan – ‘Time Out Out Of Mind’
• Bob Dylan – ‘The Freewheelin Bob Dylan’
• The Velvet Underground – ‘Velvet Underground And Nico’
• Joy Division – ‘Unknown Pleasures’
• The Brian Jonestown Massacre – ‘Aufheben’
• LCD Soundsystem – ‘The Sound Of Silver’
• The Blue Nile – ‘Hats’
• Steve Reich – ‘Music For 18 Musicians’
• Glen Campbell – ‘Wichita Lineman’
• Bon Iver – ‘Bon Iver’
• Bon Iver – ’22, a million’
• Labi Siffre – ‘Crying Laughing Loving Lying’
• Big Star – ‘#1 Record’
• James Taylor – ‘Pull Over (live)’
• Brian Eno – ‘Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)’
• Radiohead – ‘Amnesiac’
• Radiohead – ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’
• Daniel Johnston – ”Welcome To My World’ The Music Of Daniel Johnston’
• xxyyxx – ‘Xxyyxx’
• Little Feat – ‘Waiting For Columbus (live)’
• Satie, Alena Chery – ‘Gnossienne No. 1’
• Yo La Tengo – ‘We Have Amnesia Sometimes’
• Chamberlain – ‘The Moon, My saddle’
• Liquid Liquid – ‘Optimo’
• The Durruti Collumn – ‘Vinnie Riley’
• Gustav Mahler & Antoni Wit – ‘Mahler, G: Symphony No. 5’
• Jannis Xenakis – ‘ORCHESTRAL WORKS VOL/5’
• Life Without Buildings – ‘Any Other City’
• 125 Rue Montmartre – ‘Discography’
• One Last Wish – ‘1986’
• Texas is the Reason – ‘Do You Know Who You Are?’
• Moss Icon – ‘Lyburnum Wits End Liberation Fly’
• Rival Schools – ‘United By Fate’
• Glassjaw – ‘Worship and Tribute’
• Indian Summer – ‘Woolworm’
• Mineral – ‘endserenading’
• Cursive – ‘Domestica’
• Refused – ‘Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent’
• The Replacements – ‘Let it Be’
• American Football – ‘American Football’
• Iron & Wine – ‘Around The Well’
• Braid – ‘Frame and Cavas’
• Jets to Brazil – ‘Orange Rhyming Dictionary’
• Embrace – ‘Embrace’
• Rites Of Spring – ‘Rites Of Spring’
• Heroin – ‘Discography’
• Still Life – ‘from angry heads with skyward eyes’
• Penfold – ‘amateurs and professionals’
• Drive Like Jehu – ‘Yank Crime’
• The Maple State – ‘At Least Until We’ve Settled in Hundred Reasons – Ideas Above Our Station’
• Rival Schools – ‘United By Fate’
• Pavement – ‘Crooked Rain Crooked Rain’
• My Bloody Valentine – ‘mvb’
• Rites of Spring – ‘Rites of Spring Algernon Cadwallader – Fun’
• Hundred Reasons – ‘Ideas Above Our Station’
• Duster – ‘Cooking’
• Piebald – ‘We are the only friends we have’
• Sunny Day Real Estate – ‘Diary’
• Indian Summer – ‘Giving Birth to Thunder’

The 1975 will headline Glastonbury later this year along with the likes of Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo.