WET LEG a girl band from the Isle of Wight on Domino Records

but hey, they're such a vibe

they just had a catchy single and it got a lot of attention! that's not a crime

over and over in this thread i find it very bizarre that this band is being held up as suspect for just...being in the music business

i don't even love them but i fail to see what's so bad about it

they said the album was recorded mostly in april so idk i can believe that it would have been out like, november, without the pandemic causing all sorts of logistical issues for labels & manufacturing etc

they're not terrible just the hype has been totally disproportionate to what's there so far & it's a little exhausting

the badness is in direct proportion to (the number of Guardian, NME etc articles about them that my newsfeed shoves at me) x (how mundane I have found those songs) / (the number of songs they have put out)

Chaise Longue reminds me of "Lawnchairs". Chaise Lawn.

people itt seem to be coming from a few different places re:how ubiquitous & inescapable this band is, whether they're getting buzz or getting shoved down our throat by a pitiless marketing juggernaut

it's buzz, all my Gen X friends who like e.g. Vampire Weekend are all over this band

I like 'em just fine, got a vague Le Tigre vibe going on

I know nothing about them except what's been written in this thread... I saw their first LA show last month (the only gig I went to in 2021), liked them just fine, and thought that the rest of the songs on the album were pretty good if not better than the singles.

Their fourth record is gonna be great. Too bad no one will care by then

people itt seem to be coming from a few different places re:how ubiquitous & inescapable this band is, whether they're getting buzz or getting shoved down our throat by a pitiless marketing juggernaut

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, January 11, 2022 6:26 PM (one hour ago)

right like... in reality what even is this supposedly suffocating "hype" to which ppl itt are referring? pitchfork has written one total article about them and it was when they announced the album. they've played some late night shows in the uk and the us. i've seen "chaise lounge" sporadically across some year end lists... it was completely absent from pitchfork's list. the guardian ran a fairly standard interview w/ them this week. they were named one of the acts in bbc's "sound of 2022." what exactly is out of proportion here? it all feels pretty in line w/ an indie rock band that has a good debut single out

Who wouldn’t like a blend of Elastica and Flight of the Conchords?

Very late to all this and saw the video and assumed they were an L.A. band, with such a Rodarte-like level of what someone upthread called 'detached cool' and 'whimsical nonsense'.

Also, I can just imagine the rush to the dance floor in the commons area of college dorms when this song comes on at a party.

i've now heard Chaise Longue 5, maybe 6 times over a 6 month period and still like it. their other songs didn't make a big impression.

the Our Daughter's Wedding joke up there is probably the best thing about this thread.

I wish this group no ill will. There's always one particular band at any given time people go wild over that I just don't get AT ALL, and right now it's this one. See: The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, Paramore and so on.

(I still think of them as a more mannered, less clever Art Brut.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qWHthLQ1Uw

don't care much for this one

I think I like it better than any of their previous! The vocal schtick is grating but as a song it's pretty solid.

This is the first one I really do like with no reservations.

each new song gets worse.

They seem to be very cynically marketed at horny middle-aged 6Music listeners, and no surprise they've been pushed on there relentlessly.

The tiresomely repeated backstory about how "we're just two ickle babbies who somehow got a record deal and tons of exposure by accident" is also a bit obnoxious (and largely untrue afaik)

I see they're trying to cover all the 6Music bases with some heavy shoegaze guitar this time!

If this had been their first single I wouldn't have minded them so much, but the vocals are still annoying and the music is still basic indie

Enjoying the emerging Penn & Teller dynamic in this band

you know what's tiresome is men looking down their nose at this band because of "the marketing", and somehow it's only female bands that get this criticism, huh

Hum. I don't particularly like and know much about this band but regarding "marketing" criticism, I think the strokes mentioned xposts got their fair share at the time !

never forget Glasvegas

All I know about them is their singer was a professional footballer who "was part of the Cowdenbeath squad that won promotion as runners up in the 2000–01 Scottish Third Division". Thank you, wiki.

nepotism, i knew it

you know what's tiresome is men looking down their nose at this band because of "the marketing", and somehow it's only female bands that get this criticism, huh

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, March 2, 2022 10:28 AM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pulling the "Ahhh you just hate girls in bands" card there, nice one, thank-you. Won't change the fact that Wet Leg are a triumph of marketing over content. Not the first and definitely not the last band to fit that criteria, but the unusually aggressive way they have have been sold is absolutely worthy of comment and trying to shut down discussions about this is lame, tbh.

I dunno I'd respect them more if they'd just said "We actually worked really hard to get signed, one of us had a solo career before and it didn't really work out but we kept trying, etc" instead of all this "we were just rolling around in the grass with daisies in our hair and this nice record company man came and dangled a contract on a fishing rod and lured us into a studio, and now we're a successful band!!" type of thing. But I guess the true story wasn't quite whimsical enough.

you're right they should own up to their steely-eyed master plan of *checks notes* becoming a moderately buzz-worthy two-piece indie guitar band. i feel so used

in terms of Big Breakout UK Rock Bands With Massive Media Push, there have been loads that aren't female in recent years (Sports Team is one I suggested above, and boy you should see how much the kidz love Black Country New Road (as I also suggested above))

calling this moderate buzz is definitely inaccurate, there are bands who've been around 40 years who've received nothing like this kind of push

(cough LISTEN TO THE NEW HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT end cough)

They seem to be very cynically marketed at horny middle-aged 6Music listeners, and no surprise they've been pushed on there relentlessly.

The tiresomely repeated backstory about how "we're just two ickle babbies who somehow got a record deal and tons of exposure by accident" is also a bit obnoxious (and largely untrue afaik)

ah, the doctrine of lamacqulate conception

you know what's tiresome is men looking down their nose at this band because of "the marketing", and somehow it's only female bands that get this criticism, huh

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, March 2, 2022 5:28 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this board spent months mercilessly dunking on Greta Van Fleet, to name just one recent example

Nice to see them keeping some Isle of Wight settings in their videos - this one's set at St. Catherine's Lighthouse, near Niton.

This is the closest I've come to enjoying anything by them. By far their most tolerable song so far imo.

The marketing is classic, though. I only look down my nose at them for their music.

What is this "marketing" everyone goes on about? Like my entire exposure to them is some friends posting their videos on social media and saying "I like this!" (I like it too, for the record.) Are they underwritten by the Isle of Wight tourism board or something?

there's definitely a UK/US divide on this

But even in the UK, is it "marketing" or is it just your normal buzz-band thing where the music press grabs onto it because they like it? What's the marketing? Are they on billboards?

I was just making that up. I've only heard of them because of this thread.

promotional coupons in your biscuit tins, songs on repeat at the trilby hat shop, etc.

If they are getting a huge radio and media push in the UK, I guess that that’s one thing, but from the US it seems so far the “marketing “ seems to consist of issuing singles with videos, and a short article in Mojo, which has been pretty standard for anyone in the pop music industry since time immemorial? They are comely, sure that’s part of the appeal, but sex appeal has been part of marketing forever too.

We get it, marketing only exists if it's happening in North America.

I've seen no marketing for Wet Leg at all - apart from this thread which has done a decent job in and of itself.

Strikes me the accusatory tone of the response to them is retroactive, as in 'I don't like them, therefore there must be some dastardly scheme', as opposed to y'know, tens/hundreds of bands receive this kind of push, but most don't have any impact whatsoever. Which is to say, it's a bit of marketing, half-decent tunes and a shit ton of luck.

Maybe ilx poster jed_ was just a shill for Big Wet Leg.

side note, jed_ hasn't posted since November, so I hope he's ok.

Big Wet Leg is a better name.

We get it, marketing only exists if it's happening in North America.

Do you get a bonus for every time you shoehorn some variation of this into a thread?

We get it, marketing only exists if it's happening in North America.

yes! i posted something similar upthread i'm not even into this but it's like...this just seems like the music business

Do you get a bonus for every time you shoehorn some variation of this into a thread?

Hardly needs to be shoehorned the way American posters act on ILX.