Somewhere out there, there is a man with a more extensive discography than you can possibly imagine, with over 23,000 songs. He has 27 Spotify profiles (as far as I know of, there could be more) where he puts out album after album. You might be thinking, “Caitlin, I know who you’re talking about, and his name is John Darnielle.” And while it’s true that The Mountain Goats have an extremely extensive discography, that’s not who I’m referring to.
The man I am referring to is Matt Farley, but he goes by many names including (but likely not limited to):
- The Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns
- The Guy Who Sings Your Name Over and Over
- The Sorry Apology Song Person
- The Strange Man Who Sings About Dead Animals
- Matt Motern Manly Man
- The Odd Man Who Sings About Puke, Poop and Pee
- The Very Nice Interesting Singer Man
- The Paranormal Song Warrior
- The Motern Media Holiday Singers
- The Singing Film Critic
- The Singing Animal Lover
- The Hungry Food Band
- The Passionate & Objective Jokerfan
- Papa Razzi and the Photogs
- The Toilet Bowl Singers
- The Motern Manly Band
- Caniko Tucci
- The Finklestinks
- Moes Haven
- Projection from the Side
- The Big Heist
- The MA Love Song Warriors
- The Farley Flower Band
- The Great Weather Song Person
- The Boston Sports Band of New England
- The Philadelphia Sports Band
- Brennan McFarley
On these profiles, he does pretty much what you’d expect him to. He has hundreds of albums out, with up to 100 songs on them, singing little ditties about people, places, and poop. He probably has a song about your hometown or your name. Spotify even has “This Is…” playlists for some of his profiles. He even has his own playlist highlighting his 313 favorites. He puts all of this music out under a label called Motern Media, and often will sneak his phone number into songs to yield messages from listeners.
Not all of the music is made in jest, Farley refers to his serious albums, like “Common Phrases” as his “No Joke” work.
The question I kept running into while investigating this is, why? Why make all these songs? And to my inner-self asking those questions, I have a rebuttal: Why not? I think it is a noble undertaking to try and make as many songs about as many things as possible. Some of these songs, like “It’s Ok to Break the Law If You Have Good Intentions” are not completely unlike songs that children’s TV shows make to teach the youth about all of the things this world has to offer. Additionally, Farley has said that he makes revenue from Spotify from these tracks. And, as my coworker dj mothball noted, he’s likely: “literally the only artist making money off of Spotify streams.”
Farley has even inspired some knock-offs like: The Guy Who Sings About Holidays And Celebrations, The Guy Who Sings About Letters And Numbers, and The Guy Who’s Always Hungry (all of which seem to be the same young child on different profiles).
For WKNC fans, I recommend checking out “Raleigh, North Carolina, Forever!” (or perhaps even the entire album “North Carolina City and Towns Songs for All People,” released in 2019).
I’m sure there’s much more down this rabbithole, so if you’re bored I highly recommend Googling Matt Farley to your heart’s content.
“Let’s hear it for Sir Walter Raleigh, that’s the person Raleigh is named after,”
Caitlin
Some of the information mentioned in this article was sourced from Matt Farley’s Wikipedia page.