Wesley Willis is a musician from Chicago, whom if it weren’t for the internet, I’d never have heard such amazing tracks as Suck a Cheetah's Dick, Rock and Roll McDonalds, or I whupped Batman's ass.
All of his songs contain simple synthesizer beats, and simple bass/instrumental parts, and the lyrics are almost all sung in the same formulaic stanzas. It’s worse than pop music in its’ arrangement, but what makes Willis’ work stand out isn’t the vulgarities he’s spewing, but the almost sing-song manner he goes about it.
His music is bizarre, to say the least.
I hadn’t known until I did a little research: many of his songs were written to exorcise personal demons whom in paranoid schizophrenic episodes would torment him. Music was what got him through those experiences.
He had a cult following in the mid-late 90s, as file-sharing sprung up and people shared his music across the world wide web. I hadn’t been introduced to him until a few years ago. It was my girlfriend who reintroduced me to his works. I’m a bit of a late bloomer to be a fan of his music. Like Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain, Willis is a dead musician. There’s not going to be anymore music by him unless someone ghost-writes or ghost-produces some music for him.
I see his fame and work as the last of a dying breed of musical expression. While he was often seen as a novelty act, and even appeared on Howard Stern (You can't find the interview on YouTube anymore...) Willis’ music defies traditional conventions of what music ‘should be’ and just is its’ own creature lurking in the underground of the internet and countercultural music scenes.
Rock over London, rock on Chicago, Wheaties breakfast of champions!
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