Saving Nation Music doesn’t at all times bestow a “Songwriter of the 12 months” award. In truth, no such award has ever been bestowed earlier than. Although Album of the 12 months, Music of the 12 months, Single of the 12 months, and Artist of the 12 months are mainstays, it’s solely often that dwell performances, musicians, movies, and different such issues are acknowledged. For 2024, it feels crucial to acknowledge a songwriter.
What can we owe such an event to, and who’s the beneficiary? It’s solely the form of unimaginable yr that Jesse Welles has orchestrated that justifies manifesting an award out of skinny air, and handing it to him. And few if anybody who’s been following Jesse Welles in 2024 will put up a combat. It’s solely the dwindling quantity of people who find themselves completely unaware who will say, “Who?” and “Why?”
There could have by no means been a extra inspiring, industrious, illuminating, hilarious, crafty, compelling, poignant and productive yr in your entire historical past of the songwriting self-discipline than the one Jesse Welles authored in 2024. Properly, Bob Dylan in 1965 might need one thing to say about that. However with reference to quantity, Jesse Welles even has ‘ol Bobby Dylan beat.
We dwell in an period when dudes and gals braying right into a cellphone digicam catch fireplace in a single day, and fully upstage the music hierarchy. Merely the format Jesse Welles has chosen to showcase his songs by way of is its personal social commentary, each on the excesses of the music business and the way it commodifies a songwriter’s expressions into product, and the way foolish it’s that cellphone movies can seed superstars, generally undeservedly.
Irony, self-awareness, wit, and knowledge are the shades Jesse Welles paints in. In the event you don’t know, Welles has been posting tons of movies on Instagram and YouTube (and different codecs) all yr as commentary on the extremely troubling feed of present occasions coming down the pike. He’s additionally launched some these musings in correct music recordings, and assembled them into albums like Hells Welles.
However actually it’s the real-time, generally every day facet of his output that has made the phenomenon so enrapturing and distinctive. When you fall down the rabbit gap or begin following him, there’s no escape. It’s a gentle weight loss program of unimaginable songs talking fact to energy, and placing your individual nervous ideas to rhyme.
Initially from the small city of Ozark, Arkansas, Welles commenced his profession in 2012 by releasing homespun recordings through Bandcamp and Soundcloud. He additionally shaped a band referred to as Useless Indian in 2012 that finally launched some singles, EPs and albums, and later Welles had a band referred to as Cosmic-Americana. Welles opened huge reveals for bands like Rival Sons and Greta Van Fleet. He finally moved to Nashville to file the doomy, soiled, folks punk-inspired thrash rock album Crimson Bushes and White Trashes with Dave Cobb in 2018.
However Jesse’s profession was simply form of meandering alongside till he found this thread of writing strikingly related songs tied to present occasions, and saying the issues we’re all pondering, however battle to specific.
And what’s nice about Jesse Welles is that he’s not taking any sides within the tradition conflict besides for individuals who are the victims. He’s not pulling any punches or taking any prisoners. Whether or not it’s America’s navy industrial advanced and the wars its perpetrating, the poison in our meals, or the pharmaceutical firms who’re making billions for writing scripts for over-diagnosed ailments or profiteering off the psychological well being disaster, Jesse Welles has some sharp phrases for all of them.
The one factor impinging on the potential of generations wanting again on this yr previously tense with shock and awe at what Jesse Welles has completed is that if Jesse continues his quasar-level of output into 2025 and permits all of it to mix collectively into one unimaginable physique of labor.
Saving Nation Music’s Songwriter of the 12 months? That looks like the least that could possibly be stated to acknowledge what Jesse Welles completed in 2024.
