Review Summary: A schizophrenic with a casio makes an album that truly plays with one's perspective of good and bad within music.
Comedy is an interesting thing. It can be as simple as the cliche of slipping over a banana peel, to the complexity of a witty observation, and all the way back to somebody like Dane Cook grunting to the audience thinking he is intelligent. Anything and everything can be funny, but there are certain lines that most people don't want to cross. Many people are still uncomfortable with things like racism, misogyny, and death. The most risque of all seems to be the making fun of disabilities. Sure, it is done in stand-up with scores of laughter all-around, but you don't see a person jokingly hitting a blind person saying something like, "bet you didn't see that coming." Culture has told us to not make fun of the handicapped, and almost forces us to ironically alienate them out from our teasing, just because of their problems.
And along comes the schizophrenic Wesley Willis.
His sound can be summed up in very few sentences. Armed with just a casio keyboard, he speak-sings his songs of a length to your average pop-punk or grind song. Not that it fits either of those genres; his music is entirely unique of its own. The songs aren't piano ballads from the casio, by the way. Nope, they are all made from those horrendous pre-programmed background music that comes with them. By speak-sings I also actually mean wails and loudly talks about nothing of any relevance whatsoever. The best analogy I can think of is imagine your typical homeless guy's ramblings set to elevator music. There is absolutely no redeeming quality about the music at all.
That being said, he is a ***ing genius. The music is so unique and godawful it is just plain awesome. It can bring tears to the eyes with its ridiculousness and easily add many one-liners to any list of inside jokes amongst friends. There is nothing really wrong with that either. Laughing at this crazy schizophrenic could be wrong to some people, but it isn't to who really matters, and that is the artist himself. The music ensnares you with its oddball atmosphere and really just makes you feel as if you are laughing with him, not at him, which makes for one of the better comedic musicians of this century. If not only for the fact that it is brutally honest.
Being the epitome of the 'love or hate it' type of artists means that just as many, if not more, view his music in a polar opposite light. For those who don't enjoy this type of humor, the music is probably one of the most uncomfortable listens of the century. Hearing a man repeatedly yell about "Rock n Roll McDonald's" or "Eazy-E" with almost the exact same music occurring in the background will quickly switch from just being annoying to possibly causing physical harm to one's ears.
With all of this in mind, it is hard to give an accurate assumption of what this album really deserves. So in all fairness, and despite my strong feelings for it, I will give it the fairest rating I can. To get a great impression of the music sounds like, just check out the songs uploaded on his listen section. That is the only true way to fully understand a completely impossible type of music to describe.
For those who 'get it' = 5/5
For those who 'don't get it' = 1/5
(Plus .5 for being entirely one-of-a-kind)
3.5/5
