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

specifically to address imago, I am really fucking sick of you valorizing complexity and "innovation" as being somehow essential to legit enjoyment

sometimes you just wanna listen to the fucking Beach Boys, ya know?

Tunes, energy, interesting words 3xp the Beach Boys have all three (and were pretty complex and innovative!)

OK fine, sub in the greatest bubblegum hits

this is unimpeachable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4pArjPVA-8

rank Wet Leg, Beach Boys, and Jute Gyte

and the flaming lips

Assigning values on a scale from Gifter to Grifter

Beach Boys
Jute Gyte
Vanity Fare
Flaming Lips
Grifters
Wet Leg

That is an unfair characterisation, sleeve! How's about I play a card to the table and show the sort of UK indie I value, noteworthy not for its complexity but its melodic generosity, sense of structure to the songwriting and emotional intensity. I choose Trust Fund for this as they've just today put out a new single for the first time in four years, but as a solo concern - here's their full-band swansong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXYXc2EAbs0

I just don't think Wet Leg do much more than cutesy cheek and SEO My First Hooks, and they're already getting insane hype (lol be quiet sic) and winning ILM EOY polls on the first try. I don't hate them but something feels skewed; I do feel somewhat gaslit by it all. The new song is probably their best so far as they're throwing saxes and heavy guitars into the mix but it's all still pressing very familiar buttons; it isn't the simplicity I dislike (I'm a Fall fan ffs!) but the pat familiarity, the sense that I can see exactly where the cogs are

*throwing saxes and heavy guitars into the mix, achieving some sense of textural contrast at least, NOT COMPLEXITY, lol

“seeing where the cogs are” see i like this. it’s kind of a disco edit approach to guitar music and i’m into it.

Well, if we're limiting it to UK indie that's

- female-fronted
- cheeky
- ridiculously simple
- recent
- catchy
- cog-evident

...then here's something that does all that without sounding like it was run past a test audience of middle-aged poptimists first

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPRX3i1aOF8

it's about having character, dear folks

oh we definitely have a character on our hands

that’s a great video

imago you’re a middle aged poptimist surely. so you’re saying you want something that sounds like… you wouldn’t like it? not really following you

the subtext of all this criticism - too marketed, too on-the-nose, is that wet leg’s success (such as it is) is unearned. that they’ve had a “head start”. they’ve had unfair advantages. but what these advantages are seems hard to pin down. they have a label that has been successful at plugging their songs. that’s what labels are set up to do. that is their whole job! imago you’re saying they’re not formally adventurous enough for your tastes, that they sound “focus grouped”. ok. i mean rock music really doesn’t need to be formally adventurous to be good but whatever.

like why all the agonizing?? honestly very weird to me

we don't need to pit women against other women

otm ^

I did just turn 35 tbf. Game overrrr

I dunno, I've given two examples of songs I love from the UK indie/pop milieu that aren't formally adventurous at all, but which have a little bit of compositional spice, emotional heft or whatnot - songs which, to my ears, have an interesting POV. And yeah, my main beef with Wet Leg is the jet propulsion they're getting from all corners - which, combined with their highly polished sound and banal cool-kids vibe, feels like yet another victory for ennui

Re:Trust Fund, if it makes you feel better, "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab for Cutie has 80 million more spotify plays than "Chaise Longue"

yeah but what about youtube and tiktok :p

right. lol. like... a lot of talk about marketing wizardry and not so much talk about the fact their debut single is pretty killer. and i don't love the band but just like, objectively speaking... and i think ppl who have strong negative reactions should understand that a song able to provoke those kinds of reactions means there's ppl who feel as passionately in the opposite direction, and that's how you make pop magic baby

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, March 2, 2022 11:31 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I have a hard time understanding why they even warrant such strong reactions either way. It's really only the aggressive sales push and the phoney-baloney self-mythologising I find irritating, the actual music's just kind of there to me, not exactly offensive but not particularly great. Middling indie.

I've said all I want to say about them anyway and frankly the WL Stans on here scare me a bit so I'm bailing out of this one.

The last thing I'll mention is WL putting a song called "Angelica" brought to mind this one from 1997 which think sounds like a kind-of proto Wet Leg in an odd way (although none of their other stuff did apart from this).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16indpzGa9U

the WL Stans on here scare me a bit

name names

and if you're including me, i mean... i never really think about this band ever except when this thread gets bumped tbh

wet leg stan is my new blues name

NickB i feel like you're pushing your new blues persona at me and frankly it smells like payola

just to be clear I haven't accused anyone of payola, Twitter bots or any sort of popularity fixing, the reasons for their ascent are at least partly encoded into the music/presentation (I repeat: banal cool-kids vibe), but this sucks and here's why etc

xp your loss tracer but for those who care, new album is out next month, gonna be called 'why the longue chaise?'

You're on fire today, nick.

you joke, but that would at least demonstrate a bit of actual wit rather than the drivel they serve

WAKE UP SHEEPLE

I'm as allergic to the hype machine as imago seems to be, but I still really like this band. I think the main thing is simply that they're fun. It's nice to follow the rise of a band who don't seem to take things too seriously, and it's rare that pop music these days makes me smile and/or laugh. But they do. I can see that their music might not make any claim to posterity, but sometimes you just want to listen to some fun, catchy tunes with some personality. And they've got that. Will I burn out on them eventually? Yeah, probably. I'll just enjoy it while the feeling lasts.

If I'm keeping track, we should not do the following:

- criticize their marketing
- not criticize their marketing if we are North American
- criticize them for lacking formal complexity or innovation (which seems like an aesthetic concern and not to do with marketing or gender but is still Bad)
- compare them to other artists if they are female (even though we are talking about them in part because they won a poll that pitted women against other women [and also men])

- criticize their marketing

- not criticize their marketing if we are North American

- criticize them for lacking formal complexity or innovation (which seems like an aesthetic concern and not to do with marketing or gender but is still Bad)

- compare them to other artists if they are female (even though we are talking about them in part because they won a poll that pitted women against other women [and also men])

there's a bad habit that people get into where comparisons for a female musician are always other female musicians, as if they need to stay in their female corner, and yes this is bad and people should stop doing it

honestly this band is like, i dunno, fun? not worth all this trouble? both?

It’s okay to think that they suck! It’s just weird ascribing their success to vague ~marketing~ rather than some people actually liking their songs.

WL are going for 'cool' way more than they're going for 'fun' imo

here's more my idea of fun (rather than laconically parading one's mother-worrisome and big-d-obtaining nature, which is, after all, just banal cool-kid bragging)

no more in-character lj posts itt thanks

"big d" line is hilarious, women can be funny

so if I post examples of women being funny in pop songs (see: the Audiobooks one) I'm pitting women against each other, and if I post examples of men being funny in pop songs (see: the Chap one) I'm denying that women can be funny

*posts every GFOTY video and peaces*

*returns*

*posts every 100 gecs and every Fraxiom video*

*peaces*

I watched the video at the start of the thread, I thought it was stupid-funny (especially the random high kick) but musically it was very bad. Do pop bands not have to have melodies anymore?

Don't know anything about the hype machine, I've heard of them once or twice. But I'm in North America, so I don't count.

no more in-character lj posts itt thanks

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Thursday, March 3, 2022 7:02 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Do pop bands not have to have melodies anymore?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc5vncyWQnY

Two notes (occasional half step down) over chord changes would be an imprrovement over a spoken slide down a chromatic scale.

Actually that would get me on board! I think the vocal is the only thing I have a problem with on the WL track.

i like this band more than I should based on the way she sings "driving in my car" and the 'here we go' chant bit.

getting insane hype and winning ILM EOY polls on the first try. I

we’re being suspicious of a girl unit winning the ILM poll without an existing fan base now?

It worked for Lily Allen, dinit?

...wut

that song by The Chap is fucking 'orrible

i'm don't think there's much stanning? i'm okay with the song, feels like a fun one hit wonder thing...i'm just constantly perplexed by "attractive young people make an extremely catchy pop song and it got popular" becoming some byzantine chaise lounge industrial complex oliver stone movie conspiracy

xp your loss tracer but for those who care, new album is out next month, gonna be called 'why the longue chaise?'

― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Thursday, March 3, 2022 7:01 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

just want to say how much i love this post