With Jesse Welles going on a US tour currently, I thought it would be fitting to review his most popular album, Hells Welles. Welle’s music irradiates with old-school Bob Dylan folk-country-blues sound that talks about many different controversial topics of today. Welles touches on aspects of war, politics, and the state of the music industry with his songs like ‘War Isn’t Murder’, ‘Trump Trailer’, ‘Genocide Cake’, and ‘Payola’. 

  My favorite songs from this album are ‘War Isn’t Murder’ and ‘Payola’. ‘War isn’t Murder’ is an emotional, eye-opening reflection on the current wars happening in our world and how people have been so desensitized to the topics that we have put the idea in our heads that “war isn’t murder, they’re called casualties”. This whole song is a great piece of commentary on every conflict that is happening right now and shows us how while we may distance ourselves from these conflicts, wars, and tragedies happening in our world today, the fact remains, war is a horrible thing. Whether you think it’s a necessary evil or not, ‘war is murder’. 

  My other great takeaway from this album is the song ‘Payola’. This song provides an eye-opening perspective on the music industry’s current state and how all fame takes is money. This song time and time again screams how you just have to pay for your fame, how everything is “payola for thee, payola for playlists blue check marks and follows and streams”, how within the music industry “it’s all bought and paid for, it ain’t as it seems”, how nearly all the big artists now are “brought to you by nepotism and veiled in authority”.

  This song constantly tells us how some of the biggest artists, maybe even artists you like, could have or did get their fame just because they had the money to buy it.

  This entire album is an emotional and informative look into the music industry, the political landscape, and the current state of our world.