Work Makes the Difference

If you haven't seen one of the newest John Oliver episodes and are seeing this review you may think, "What is this? Where did you find this?"

This is Work Makes the Difference by the Riverside County Department of Social Services. In other words, this is the 13 minute album released by the Welfare department in Riverside County, California. If you don't know, America's welfare system is extremely terrible. In 1993, this album was released, and it was used as hold music for the department of welfare at that time. Welfare was basically non-existent for low income families. The system is horrendous, and all in all, poor people were getting fucked over.

The 10 tracks in this include 9 one minute songs and a long 3 minute ballad. The track list is as follows:
1. Make The Difference
2. Everybody Needs Something Positive
(ok starting out strong these tracks don't sound too weird despite the lyrics being basically "Work if you want welfare." which people are already doing but ok)
3. Welfare's Just A Temporary Way Of Life
(huh)
4. Feels So Good - Country
(this title will make more sense in a moment)
5. Employment is Pride
6. Welfare is Temporary
(ew and ew)
7. Feels So Good - Urban Contemporary
(i'll explain in a second)
8. Self-Sufficiency is Supporting Yourself
(condescending but ok)
9. Feels So Good - Spanish Version
and finally
10. Work For It

If you didn't pick up already, the different versions of Feels So Good, a song about how getting off of welfare is rewarding, are all different specifically to market to different races. Yes, when white people would call to get welfare, they'd play the country version. For black peoples, they'd play the "urban" version (it's just rapping/corny hip hop) and for people who spoke Spanish, they had a whole version to tell them that they were not going to get welfare benefits. Fun for everyone!

This entire album is the epitome of terrible capitalistic decisions. Why does this need to exist? If you're calling the welfare department because you are struggling in life, the last thing you want to hear while they ignore you is condescending music about how you don't work enough.

The worst part about this album is that the production isn't bad. I hate that I can't give this a 0 because of that but my god this is just wow. If you have 13 minutes and need a good laugh that has some slight depressing undertones knowing that people had to hear this before being denied welfare, give it a listen. If you don't want to listen to this, then don't. You aren't missing out on much.