I bought the Wet Leg album on Friday and was transported back to 1973.
Carrying the yellow vinyl under my arm as I walked through Edinburgh reminded me of the thrill of buying a record on the day of release.
That feeling that you are now a part of something, simply through that act of immaculate choice.
Some might call that elitism. And much of pop music is built on it. Music can be hugely tribal.
Yet when something niche crosses over to the mass market it can be unbelievably exciting. A moment when those of us who are forever looking in the window of life suddenly find the party is actually in their room.
Wet Leg’s live shows are becoming the stuff of legend and the Isle of Wight duo’s debut album – also called Wet Leg – is the bookies’ favourite to top the UK charts this week.
This is the album we’ll hear blasting out of cars, flats and headphones all summer.
For 40 minutes we might not even hear the world falling apart.
And it’s at times like this that we need conduits to access communal feelings of joy, pain, bewilderment and wonder.
That’s the purpose of art.
Music can be just this lifeline and the greatest records, for me, still feel like joining the best club ever.
This communality of spirit is intensely powerful, and Wet Leg are currently fuelling it.
Do you remember the first time?
At the age of 62 it’s quite extraordinary to be feeling this again, when much of chart pop music leaves me cold.
When something feels this special it’s a moment to treasure because it encapsulates more than music.
Back in 1973 I was 14 and in a gang of one.
That was when I bought David Bowie’s album Aladdin Sane, carrying it into Harris Academy like a defrocked prefect’s badge of honour.
Ok here it is. We made a bloody shmalbum and it’s out today!! This is a huge huge deal for us and we are very proud mummies 💖 https://t.co/lkZckYrUM0 pic.twitter.com/dlPbfHPGRU
— Wet Leg (@wetlegband) April 8, 2022
This effortlessly raised me far above the scrutiny of any pupil, parent or physics teacher who might dare to judge.
In an instant I learned the power of image and alienation. And how an adolescent army’s frenzied adulation of a man in kabuki drag and slingbacks could power the National Grid.
At that time Bowie was already the coolest pop star ever. Many would say he still is.
But Aladdin Sane was the first album I bought with my pocket money and we teenagers made Bowie a bona fide pop star.
Our mums and dads hated him, of course.
They were scared we might turn out like him, parading the streets of Dundee in our mother’s mascara and lipstick.
But I had found my tribe.
United by the power of the pop song, we had the power to take on the world – or escape from it.
Music can be our lifeline through turbulent times
As Noel Coward said, it’s extraordinary how potent cheap music is.
And for my generation, pop music underpinned our precarious adolescent foundations with a mixture of glitter, Max Factor, Clearasil and chutzpah.
Pop stars like Bowie and Marc Bolan inhabited a land where gender, sexuality and background merged into a fabulous conceit.
This was a long, long way from my dad’s job as a delivery man for Wallace Land o’ Cakes.
All we cool kids fervently wanted to be Bowie. And if we couldn’t be him we could at least imagine being Angie, his equally far-out wife.
We were a gang, space cadets in Bowie’s universe.
Owning Aladdin Sane, and wearing it under your arm, like a bejazzled glam rock handbag, instantly plugged you into the zeitgeist in a way that sweaty old rockers like Deep Purple never could.
I’d imagine it’s the same for the teenagers hurrying out of record shops with vinyl copies of Wet Leg this week.
Maybe even the ones streaming it on their phones and smart speakers.
But Bowie, Bolan and Roxy Music were the first manifestations, for me, of the potency of pop music.
Daughter just said “Happy Wet Leg Day” as she left the house. pic.twitter.com/ZUx12LhTAh
— Lucky’s Record Bar (@lucky_record) April 8, 2022
They showed me how it could become a lifeline through turbulent times.
It still can.
Wet Leg music is the soundtrack to this moment
As I got older and adolescent angst was tempered by reason and reality, the best music gave a sense of elation, togetherness and comfort that only sex, drugs and alcohol could match.
That was youth.
Now at 62 the best pop music still feels like youth. Only danced to at a slower speed and sometimes powered by a pacemaker.
Wet Leg remind me of everything I love about pop music.
There is nothing more exciting than that moment when collective energy seems to be fuelled by the same force-field.
It’s happened often in my life. Either with movements like glam and punk, or with specific groups who rise from your dreams and suddenly define your reality.
When an artist seems to emerge fully formed and sing your life, it’s priceless.
Pop music can salve the troubled soul.
And the best times are when that search for the lost chord becomes something that chimes with the zeitgeist.
Even if Wet Leg stopped now, they’ve achieved just that.
