At one time, it seemed there were only two ways to digest a Wesley Willis record: as a bizarre, comical farce, or as a chronicle of a man's battle with schizophrenia. I've since found that there's a happy medium between the two, but when I first became acquainted with his music, my appreciation was firmly planted in the former category. It was 1996 when I first came across Willis' Greatest Hits, Vol. 1, and it instantly struck me as among the funniest, most absurd things I'd ever heard. I marveled at the similarity between every song, each clearly run through a bargain-basement Casio with preset melodies. I reveled in Wesley's impromptu rants and sound effects. But most of all, I was struck by the way Wesley chose to end every song with an advertising slogan. Surely, this was the work of a comedic genius.
For most, the novelty quickly wore off, but rather than returning to my shelf to be forgotten, the album inched its way into my regular rotation, much as William Shatner's The Transformed Man had the summer before. Intermixed with Pulp, Morphine and Pavement, it was easier to take Wesley's work more as music than comedy. I began to develop a strange appreciation for his twisted stories, and to see that this man, despite his failings, possessed an earnest musical vision, and was determined to foist it upon the world, ready or not. So keep in mind that it's as a fan that I assign this album a 4.6. For those of us who range from casual admirers to Wesleynauts, Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 simply serves up more of the same stuff we've come to oddly enjoy, which is unfortunate given the volume of music he produced in his lifetime.
Wesley's songs traditionally fall into a finite number of categories, and the material on Vol. 3, compiled by longtime friend Jello Biafra, offers no real exceptions to the rule. There are odes to popular venues ("Viper Room", "Wrigley Field"), tributes to heroes ("Oprah Winfrey", "Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers"), and surreal lyrical and sonic experiments ("If", "Suck a Polar Bear's Dick"). Some of the latter delve more into the realm of the bizarre than his previous offerings ("Make My Joyplane Crash and Burn", for instance, features modulated vocals reminiscent of early Ween), while much of the record's second half features lo-fi demos, as well as his varied work with both The Fiasco and The Dragnews. Unfortunately, too many tracks pop up to simply retread old ground. On "Your Way Right Away", Wesley rehashes "Rock 'n' Roll McDonalds" with Burger King instead, and "I Whipped Spiderman's Ass" once again pits Wesley against the superhero du jour. These poor choices undermine what little novelty remains this far into Wesley's career.
Like his previous collections, Vol. 3's strongest moments are Wesley's most intimate, when he writes about events in his daily life like an entry from some demented diary. On tracks like "My Keyboard Got Damaged" and "I'm Going on a World Tour", Wesley's spoken lyrics reveal how disjointed and tortured the life of a schizophrenic can be. "Verbal Assault" recounts a number of times during which he's been unintentionally disruptive when riding the bus: "Just as when I was listening to my rock and roll, a mean schizophrenia voice whipped my ass with profanity... Suddenly, I started to rave at the bus driver, calling him a jerk." Naturally, these rants can seem absurdly hilarious at first, but with time, one can get past that and recognize the sadness of these stories.
As most Pitchfork readers know, Wesley lost his battle with leukemia late last year at the age of 40. In that respect, Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 serves just as well as any of Wesley's previous efforts as a showcase for his unique vision. But for those who've followed his story and music since his Alternative Tentacles debut, there's little new ground here. Surely, some new and interesting sounds could have been culled from his hundreds upon hundreds of recorded songs; instead, we're left with a record that is, for a Wesley Willis album, relatively by the book.
