REVIEW: JESSE WELLES – HELLS WELLES (2024)

I’m the very opposite of “Down with the kids”.

However, as Twitter descends into a right-wing cesspool, because I hate the idea of Facebook, I’m not bothered with signing up for another medium, so I haven’t migrated to Bluesky and consider Threads to be a total and utter waste of time. I find myself looking at Instagram most days.

While there, I came across Jesse Welles. He sings protest songs in the grand tradition, but he does it in a very 2024 way. He goes viral.

Like, within days of the  from United Health d Health being murdered, there was a song about the evils of United Health, and his Christmas song, “Amazon Santa Claus,” wasn’t sung at many family tables yesterday.
Anyway, I’d seen a couple of these on Instagram and searched on Spotify, coming across “Hells Welles.” I should also say that, in another throwback to the past, this came out in January, but there’s already been another album since.

There are a couple of things here: first, of course, there’s enough material in 2024 for a protest singer, but also, you have to be exceptional to do what Welles does.

Take the opener here, “War Isn’t Murder,” railing against the Israeli genocide (my word) on the people of Gaza. He reasons, “War isn’t murder, ask Netanyahu; he’s got a song for that and a bomb for you.”

While this, of course, means that you might have to share some of his worldview, there’s a range of topics here. The record industry itself is in the sights of the wonderful “Payola,” and “Cancer” is brutal.

He returns to big business a number of times in these 20 songs. “The Olympics” is one; “God, Abraham, and Xanax” is another.

It’s the way he names names that sets him apart. “Whistle Boeing” leaves you in no doubt, neither does “Fat,” and if “Fentanyl” is arguably the best thing here, then it also gives you a lesson as to what he does. Welles takes something horrible and spits it out in a two-and-a-half-minute episode. Usually, it’s as catchy as COVID, too.

Armed with his guitar and the best lyrics of their type this year, Welles thunders against modern working practices in “Slaves,” uses “Happy Easter” as a kind of State of the Union, and “News” excoriates the networks. It’s beautifully laser-guided.

“Trump Trailers” imagines a world where Donald Trump was trailer trash, “Genocide Cake” despairs at the warmongers, and the melancholic “Nickelodeon” looks at the fate of the presenters on that channel in the 90s: “The Olsen twins, Macaulay, Britney Spears—they ain’t dead, but are they really alive?” While “DuPont” reasons, “the American Nightmare is still a dream.”

“Complain” casts us all as moaners, “Boot Straps” is rock and roll from the small towns, “Depression” is country flavoured, and “Happy Mother’s Day” looks at the fate of those who have served.

Towards the end, it loses faith, like on “Misery,” before “Hell” ends things by looking at the fate of the poor in 2024, wherever they are.

And that touch of the everyman so colours this. There’s something of Woody Guthrie here; that spirit of “This machine kills Fascists” lives on—but maybe it’s more. Welles has been making music in various guises for over a decade, even having an album produced by Dave Cobb, and he’s opened for the likes of Greta Van Fleet and Rival Sons.

You’d imagine, with these songs, with this method of delivery, he’s found his true voice.

I wish there were no social media. Then it wouldn’t overshadow this type of brilliance.

Rating 9.5/10