Against All Better Judgement, Here is an Article About Jesse Willesee's Music

I've been trying to avoid doing this. Writing about Jesse Willesee. Mostly because I really don't want to end up in the press coverage section of his website. But you know, I think it's just gone too far. He's now released three songs and I'm a music writer who loves stupid shit and so I think I've just got to bite the bullet. It's time to write about him. I'm sorry, forgive me.

For those not across this spectacle of a man, where does one begin?

Jesse Willesee is an Australian artist living in Los Angeles. He's a man who people at The Daily Mail like to call "controversial" and "lewd," and whose actions are, for some reason, always "antics." A man whose torso is practically never covered by a shirt. And a man whose definition of Art is what most people would call their early 20s.

If I had a reality TV show would u watch it? @pizzaqueen93

A post shared by Jesse Willesee (@jessesunset) on Jan 21, 2016 at 8:32pm PST

When internet friends meet in real life Getting Turnt with New York's own four Loko queen @yunghannie see u soon @heav3nparty

A post shared by Jesse Willesee (@jessesunset) on May 14, 2016 at 10:22pm PDT

It would appear that Jesse is the kind of person that genuinely believes that any press is good press—that any kind of attention from anyone is a good thing. And, I suppose in a way… he is correct. He is correct in the way that if you believe any press is good press then you will probably get a bit famous and have a pretty weird and exciting life but you also will need an impenetrable sense of self in order to not become very, very sad.

And in a less depressing, more accurate way: Jesse Willesee is the guy you work with at your first ever job that keeps offering to drive you home in his car that has neons underneath it, despite your increasingly aggressive refusals. He never gives up and actually doesn't care what you say because he is oblivious to rejection and read The Catcher in the Rye way too many times in high school.

Aesthetically, Jesse rides that Spring Breakers wave. Everything is pink and white and reflective and everyone's drinking Big Gulp and there are asses and weed leaves and plastic guns everywhere. Jesse Willesee's IG is, I think, meant to look as though he and all his sexy female companions are three days into the coolest bender of their lives, coincidentally in various visually pleasing locations, but it just doesn't quite come off. In fact, it looks a lot more like they all met that afternoon on Raya and then spent two hundred dollars at a local convenience store.

Sometimes I think Andy Warhol sent us the selfie stick from beyond the grave ☀️

A post shared by Jesse Willesee (@jessesunset) on Nov 11, 2015 at 8:30pm PST

Son of Australian journalist Terry Willesee, Jesse started making news—and ensuring he gets cut out of the will—around 2012. A self described "pot activist," all of Jesse's Controversial Antics, of which there have been many, have involved weed or sex in some way, and have taken the shape of something that might offend your most conservative relative, but has a very real and definitely not made up nuance of political agenda.

For example: smoking a joint on the steps of Parliament in protest of the criminalisation of weed. Or taking a series of dick pics to show young men why taking dick pics isn't cool. Or interrupting a productive and intelligent conversation about the war on drugs on national television—a conversation in which he was already participating—in order to stand up shirtless and, that's correct, protest the war on drugs.

Last year, though, Jesse finally made some actual art and released music under the name Jesse Sunset. The first single was called "Palm Tree Party (featuring Candy Ken)" and went more or less unnoticed until its video was released, after which it continued to go unnoticed.

If you're waiting for something to happen, you can stop doing that. It's just that one thing the whole time. Very Jesse Willesee/Sunset. Next came "Maui Wowi."

Anyway. Turns out he released another one last week, titled "DOLPHIN."

I mean, I don't really have anything to say about it now that we're here. It is another song about smoking weed and another tumblr-esque video of Jesse doing basically nothing. But I do feel like I need to acknowledge it. Because soon Jesse will drop an album or perhaps drop his pants at a gig in LA and I will want to write about that and we'll need backstory. So yeah.

Anyway, if you need to swing one way or the other with where you stand on Jesse it may help to hear that he once emailed a colleague of mine to describe himself as our generation's Andy Warhol. And that he continues to describe himself in this way. And that is extremely funny.

But then again, in a world where Donald Trump can be president, maybe Jesse Willesee actually is the new Andy Warhol…

Follow Issy Beech on Twitter if you're into that kind of thing you little weirdo.