The female empowerment that inspired Wet Leg
There’s no surprise that Wet Leg have enjoyed such a meteoric rise. Their music promises nothing but a good time, and the world certainly needs that right now. They are inherently fun, with the sharp wit of singer Rhian Teasdale at the forefront of everything they do. From Mean Girls references to the hilarious satire of social mores, the postmodernism of the Isle of Wight-born group is the perfect antidote to the morass of our times.
Whether it be the catchy indie pop of the hit ‘Chaise Longue’ or other more heady pieces such as ‘Angelica’, on their eponymous 2022 debut album, the lead pair – Teasdale and Hester Chambers – laid the foundations for what promises to be an exciting career. They appeal to the current demand for fun, with a heavy dose of irony mixed in.
The group’s music is a groovy paradox; it shines a light on the ridiculousness of the present cultural juncture by adding to the absurdity while also distancing themselves with a wry smile. With Wet Leg featuring Buffalo ’66 references and pertinent critiques of dating apps, their music is the skewed essence of our times embodied. If they succeed in building on the successes of their debut, Wet Leg might well go on to be regarded as one of the definitive acts of their generation.
So what underpins the band’s successes? According to Teasdale, it is the trust in their “own bad taste”. “Someone once told me, ‘You need to trust your own bad taste,'” she recalled to Entertainment Weekly in 2022. “From the word go, we made sure to do that with Wet Leg. Why else would we have let these really dumb songs we recorded see the light of day?”
Writing these “dumb songs” is the band’s key signifier. It is what made Wet Leg such a tremendous hit, winning two awards at both the Brit Awards and Grammys this year. Speaking during the same interview, their track ‘Too Late Now’ was used as an example of this lighthearted approach. In it, Teasdale calls her life “shit” and the world “harrowing” before slamming dating apps that “tell me that I look like crap… I’m too thin or too fat… and whether I should shave my rat”.
As the last part is a comedic reference to the grooming of Teasdale’s privates, “One of the boys wrote, ‘Why can’t women just sing about sunshine and love and the stars?'” Chambers laughed about the YouTube comments. Teasdale then corrected another commenter for his biological misplacement. “He thought it was talking about my vagina,” she said. “I’m talking about my vulva!”
The group then revealed the inspirations behind this artistic angle. A key influence was Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s 2020 mega-hit ‘WAP’, which achieved great acclaim for its sex-positive message that empowered women through its explicit lyrics. Elsewhere, American rapper Ashnikko’s overall attitude, with songs such as ‘Clitoris! The Musical’ was also impactful, as were Australian punks The Chats’ and their tracks ‘Drunk and Disorderly’ and ‘The Clap’.
“Both have that great thing where they’re really silly — but cool,” Teasdale explained. This is a punk ethos that The Ramones also soared with. Much like Wet Leg, they rose from the rubble of rough times with a dose of escapist joy.
