My Top 22 of 2022: #6

6. Wet Leg - Wet Leg

A couple of years back, I’d pretty much resigned myself to having left (for want of a better genre name) “indie” music behind. Or maybe it had left me behind. I’ve been singularly unimpressed by all the Next Big Things to come down the pipe over the past decade or so, particularly the home grown variety. Occasionally I’d take note of a new American band who were playing those kind of songs, but even they often veered into another genre I was more comfortable with in middle age, such as Americana. Maybe guitar bands were a young man's game, and it was time to put away childish things.

And then, slowly, about a year ago, I started to take note of a new group of predominantly female UK “indie” artists who were making me smile in the way that guitar bands used to. Dry Cleaning. Billy Nomates. Low Hummer. Coach Party. Porridge Radio. Actually, they were making me smile in a way that the old guard often didn’t manage (Jarvis excepted), because not only were they singing about real life… but they were funny too.

I don’t know if anyone’s come up with a decent genre name for the artists I’ve mentioned above, but if they did then Wet Leg would be their queens. Chaise Longue was my single of 2022. I worried it’d just turn out to be a one off, and then they released Wet Dream, a track so good even Man of the Moment Harry Styles had to cover it.

The album wasn’t as instant a success as those two tracks, but I soon warmed to its collection of fun, quirky, attitude-packed pop songs, not one exceeding the 4 minute mark, every one guaranteed to make me smile, with a healthy mix of misanthropy and self-doubt.

Angelica, she brought her ray gun to the party
Angelica obliterated everybody
I look at my hands, then I look for the door
Can’t help but feel like I’ve been here before

I don’t know what I’m even doing here
I was told that there would be free beer
I don’t wanna follow you on the ‘gram
I don’t wanna listen to your band

It used to be so fun
Now everything just feels dumb
I wish I could care
And now I’m always 28
Still getting off my stupid face

Wet Leg - I Don't Wanna Go Out 

I don’t need no dating app
To tell me if I look like crap
To tell me if I’m thin or fat
To tell me should I shave my rat
I don’t need no radio
No MTV, no BBC
I just need a bubble bath
To set me on a higher path