In NYT Magazine, Brett Martin finds a song on Spotify about himself, and goes down the rabbit hole that Matt Farley (the writer and performer of the song) lives in.

Farley is a creator — to call him a musician might test the definition of the term, though he creates music (and movies, and books, apparently), he does it like a character from a better Kevin Smith movie:

He would leave Moes Haven CDs in public places across Manchester, hoping somebody would pick them up; he slipped them into the stacks at local record stores, like a reverse shoplifter. He would drive people to the airport just so he could force his music on them on the way.

It reminded me of Wesley Willis. Remember him? He was an unbelievably prolific, schizophrenic singer-songwriter whose songs were almost all the same (“Rock over London! Rock on Chicago!”). I saw him play at El Mocambo 25 years ago, and the show was fantastic – the crowd was genuinely into his music and wanted him to feel like a rock star, and it was one of the most positive and memorable shows I’ve ever been to. Here’s a piece about him that I like. I think he would have been an absolute viral sensation in the age of streaming and TikTok.

Anyway, this story is also much more charming and less cynical than I expected. Here’s another article from Huffpost last year. Farley sounds like a lovely weirdo. Doesn’t mean I’m adding him to a playlist anytime soon:

“Whatever else Farley’s work is, it is not AI — even when it barely seems to be I.”