moisturizer

The success of Wet Leg’s moisturizer took me a bit by surprise. Maybe it’s owed to the Gen-Z appeal of Wet Leg, or the fact that they’ve been in our rotation since the post-COVID indie pop surge of 2021, or the fact that their self-titled 2022 record won a Grammy (that should have been given to Björk), or the record’s unusually catchy, snarky songs, but moisturizer has been one of the biggest indie records in a while. moisturizer is a classic indie album laced with Wet Leg’s weirdness. The band’s embrace of the strange surely plays a considerable factor in making moisturizer stand out amongst the thousands of similair indie records.

To elaborate, moisturizer is by all means a good record. There is upbeat and downbeat tracks, sludgier moments and softer ones, teasing and hints of humor and country and (a lot of) sex. Wet Leg prioritizes the punch of a song over it’s sellability or conventionality. Why not throw in funny sound effects or speaking extracts if it fits with the song? Their quirkiness keeps the indie rock tethered somehow to catchy, almost pop-like tracks that people can sing along to.

But I can’t help but feel like the obsession with moisturizer is slightly misplaced. It moved no mountains for indie and I can’t help but feel the group sometimes uses their strangeness to hide their mediocre production and sometimes shallow songwriting (“I’ll be you’re Shakira, whenever, wherever” - like, c’mon). Moreover, I’m not moved by the sonic variety of moisturizer. Outside of their funky, sporadic adlibs, the band plays it safe with the same instrumental elements over and over again. The repetitiveness is enough for me to not return to the album for multiple listens all the way through. Their sound has simply been done (better) before.