Just wanted to add something in case anyone thinks Wesley Willis was just a bit of a joke act people enjoyed ironically[0], there is one album produced by Steve Albini where he performed with a band under the name "The Wesley Willis Fiasco" that's genuinely quite good. They also did a really fun cover of Girls on Film by Duran Duran that iirc isn't on the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arFMBo_W9io
[0] - listening to a whole album by Willis in one sitting can be a bit of a challenge, but his lyrics are undeniably stupendous
Everyone I'm aware of who appreciated Willis, did so completely unironically. It's very similar to the later fandom for Terry Davis and TempleOS.
> As a solo artist, Willis filled his albums with funny, bizarre, tense, and often obscene statements about crime, fast food, cultural trends, bus routes, violent confrontations with superheroes, and commands for his "demons" [delusions brought on by schizophrenia] to engage in bestiality
What's not to love? He's something for everyone.
Honestly the lyrics are so good, I cannot fault them. My only problem is that, as I said, it's a little hard to listen to a lot of him - he really leaned hard on a few stock keyboard beats so when you put on a whole album it's a little bit challenging. I truly love his work though, it's worth pushing through especially when you can slip a track like "Suck a Cheetah's Dick" or "The Chicken Cow" into the playlist of someone's house party.
Huh, and there had I been all those years simply assuming it was some oblique Jeff Minter reference!