It’s happened again. With their win for Best Alternative Performance and Best Alternative Album at this year’s Grammys, there has been an increase in slander for the British, Female fronted group Wet Leg.
I first found the duo on TikTok. Around April of 2022, a video of them performing their song “Chaise Longue” at a festival popped up on my for you page. With the witty lyrics and the awesome guitar riff following the chorus, I was intrigued and added their debut, self-titled album to my Spotify. Then, upon reopening Tiktok, I clicked the comments of the video and they shocked me.
I found very few positive comments.
“When ai creates music.” One user commented.
“NPC music.”, and “Music for people who don’t listen to music.” were just a few other comments.
Now, I could make a whole separate article about how rude it is to make fun of someone’s music taste, but that is not the point I am seeking to make. The point I want to make is about the importance of forming your own opinion and the problem I have with internet discourse surrounding some musicians.
Only a month after this, Wet Leg came back to my attention. As a career-long Harry Styles fan, I was keeping up with all of his interviews and performances leading up to the release of Harry’s House. In his BBC Live Lounge Interview, he performed a cover of Wet Dream, by none other than Wet Leg. When I found this on tiktok, the comments were filled with praise, asking what the song was and why they had never heard it.
A bit odd if you ask me. When the female creators of this album sing their songs, it’s met with bullying and hurtful comments, but when the most popular male artist out there went and did a cover of it, everyone is such a huge fan.
Fast forward a few months, I went on a 2-week long trip to Europe. At this time, my relationship at the time felt to be failing, I was feeling down, and I needed to find music to make me feel better. I am not the type to like to listen to sad music when I want to feel better (Phoebe Bridgers is reserved for my wallowing), so I needed something empowering. This was when I finally got around to listening to Wet Leg’s debut album.
I am not a music critic, I don’t know how to talk deeply and tear apart a song, but I know when I hear something I love, and Wet Leg’s debut album was one I instantly fell in love with. The opening track, “Being in Love”, is just awesome, the diss tracks are funny and catchy, like “Loving You” and “Ur Mom”. The closing track of the record, “Too Late Now”, is everything a closing track needs. It starts slow and ends with such a bang.
In my head, I really can’t help but compare them to other artists like the Talking Heads or the B-52s. Like these artists, Wet Leg is not afraid to just make noise and see what happens and be experimental. In my opinion, this is much more exciting than many of the artists we see in the mainstream right now, artists who many people are very angry about losing these awards to the British duo.
Are these songs a bit silly? Yes. But I think where the charm of Wet Leg lies is their silliness and the fun they have. To me, Wet Leg is the sound of being a young woman, the sound of embracing yourself and your femininity and having fun while you are young. I won’t be so blunt to say that the reason everyone is hating on them is solely because they are a female-fronted group, but unfortunately, I think the online perception of the group would be incredibly different if they were fronted by men.
So, my main point is that you should check out Wet Leg’s debut album and make an opinion for yourself. Their music may not be for everyone, but for some, it is fun, expressive, and exactly what it means to be a young woman.