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Jim E. Brown is a 19 year old from Didsbury, Manchester, who suffers from many degenerative conditions and alcoholism. He is also obese, according to the standard of the BMI. There is some scant evidence that none of this is true, and that Brown is the creation of someone from Philadelphia named Max Margulies. But I choose to ignore it.
Brown makes music, and while some of it is quite shit, a lot of it is actually quite good. Really good. I Urinated on a Butterfly—a 67-minute, twenty-six-song opus, and the latest release in Brown’s prodigious catalog—arrived this past September 11th (one day after Brown’s—and, coincidentally, my own—birthday). Before I ever heard Brown’s music, the Instagram algorithm fed me his succinct, generally useless food-review Reels, where he’ll take an enormous bite of, say, a fried chicken sandwich and then tell the camera something like: “Yeah it’s quite nice it’s just like chicken flesh on bread.”
Doesn’t seem all that interesting. So why is Brown suddenly everywhere? Why do videos of him eating junk food and inarticulately talking about it garner tens of thousands of likes? It’s no secret that we were in the midst of another British Invasion in 2025. Oasis finally conquered America. Fakemink and Esdeekid became the coolest rappers in the world. Olivia Dean and RAYE ascended to global pop stardom. But all that glamour aside, there’s a particular fascination with—and voyeurism toward—English daily life that Americans possess. Brown provides us with excellent fodder. He’s a master at capturing the quotidian drudgery of the average (albeit imagined) Mancunian: he stands in the queue at Greggs, he sits on a wet bench in St. Peter’s Square and looks at pigeons eating rubbish, he observes an injured duck in Alexandra Park, he drinks a pint at a pub called Ye Olde Cock. There’s one thing in Brown’s music that rises out of all that slice-of-life material: a misery, a dread, a crippling unhappiness. And it’s all delivered with a directness that is, somewhat unsettlingly, very reminiscent of Purple Mountains-era David Berman. Lyrical topics on the album include but are not limited to: rampant consumption of huge quantities of alcohol (“Fatty Liver”), a total disregard for the state of his physical condition (“The Liquid From My Brain Is Leaking Out My Nose”), an obsession with the pettiness of social media (“I Dreamed That You Liked My Instagram Post”), and an abhorrence of sex (“Post Coital Dysphoria”). Where does it come from? I was talking to my friend, Anthony, and he perceptively pointed out that Brown is something of a pallbearer for Indie Sleaze. When the party finally dies, Brown is who remains. When everyone else has matured, Brown still hangs on, insisting that he’s younger than he is, living like there’s no tomorrow—or, rather, like he hopes there isn’t one. Brown’s songwriting is most deeply indebted to Northern England’s dour post punk (he can stand toe-to-toe with The Smiths—Mark E. and Robert). But there’s a playful, 21st-century lo-fi warble that runs through nearly every song on this record, and—as evidenced by his cover of “Toxic” and the song “I Vomited On Britney’s Autobiography”—he mines the same sort of Y2K aesthetics that Sleazer nostalgists have been cribbing since the end of the pandemic. It’s not that Brown has sacrificed his body to give us his art—it is bodily sacrifice itself that spurs the creation of his music. He has lived the life of a glutton, downing pints and pies and sausage rolls, but his taste for rich food is not indulged in the name of seeking out pleasure. In the true Epicurean sense, it is only done to minimize pain. “I stretched my jaw too wide, like I always do,” Brown sings on album highlight “I Opened My Mouth Too Wide Today (And It Hurts).” He continues: “Trying to fill the void inside with shit foods.” Brown often insists that he’s incapable of receiving love. But anyone who bares their soul so fearlessly is bound to get some in return. He’s certainly earned my affection, whether he likes it or not.
Doesn’t seem all that interesting. So why is Brown suddenly everywhere? Why do videos of him eating junk food and inarticulately talking about it garner tens of thousands of likes? It’s no secret that we were in the midst of another British Invasion in 2025. Oasis finally conquered America. Fakemink and Esdeekid became the coolest rappers in the world. Olivia Dean and RAYE ascended to global pop stardom. But all that glamour aside, there’s a particular fascination with—and voyeurism toward—English daily life that Americans possess. Brown provides us with excellent fodder. He’s a master at capturing the quotidian drudgery of the average (albeit imagined) Mancunian: he stands in the queue at Greggs, he sits on a wet bench in St. Peter’s Square and looks at pigeons eating rubbish, he observes an injured duck in Alexandra Park, he drinks a pint at a pub called Ye Olde Cock. There’s one thing in Brown’s music that rises out of all that slice-of-life material: a misery, a dread, a crippling unhappiness. And it’s all delivered with a directness that is, somewhat unsettlingly, very reminiscent of Purple Mountains-era David Berman. Lyrical topics on the album include but are not limited to: rampant consumption of huge quantities of alcohol (“Fatty Liver”), a total disregard for the state of his physical condition (“The Liquid From My Brain Is Leaking Out My Nose”), an obsession with the pettiness of social media (“I Dreamed That You Liked My Instagram Post”), and an abhorrence of sex (“Post Coital Dysphoria”). Where does it come from? I was talking to my friend, Anthony, and he perceptively pointed out that Brown is something of a pallbearer for Indie Sleaze. When the party finally dies, Brown is who remains. When everyone else has matured, Brown still hangs on, insisting that he’s younger than he is, living like there’s no tomorrow—or, rather, like he hopes there isn’t one. Brown’s songwriting is most deeply indebted to Northern England’s dour post punk (he can stand toe-to-toe with The Smiths—Mark E. and Robert). But there’s a playful, 21st-century lo-fi warble that runs through nearly every song on this record, and—as evidenced by his cover of “Toxic” and the song “I Vomited On Britney’s Autobiography”—he mines the same sort of Y2K aesthetics that Sleazer nostalgists have been cribbing since the end of the pandemic. It’s not that Brown has sacrificed his body to give us his art—it is bodily sacrifice itself that spurs the creation of his music. He has lived the life of a glutton, downing pints and pies and sausage rolls, but his taste for rich food is not indulged in the name of seeking out pleasure. In the true Epicurean sense, it is only done to minimize pain. “I stretched my jaw too wide, like I always do,” Brown sings on album highlight “I Opened My Mouth Too Wide Today (And It Hurts).” He continues: “Trying to fill the void inside with shit foods.” Brown often insists that he’s incapable of receiving love. But anyone who bares their soul so fearlessly is bound to get some in return. He’s certainly earned my affection, whether he likes it or not.
Dec 31, 2025