Political playlists: What messages do presidential campaign songs send?
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So is Mitt Romney going after the angry Toby Keith fan?
Is Barack Obama looking for the edgy-yet-mellow independent voter, grooving to Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" or indie band Arcade Fire?
What about Rick Santorum, who was just endorsed by Pat Boone? Is "Love Letters in the Sand" about to lead the Santorum campaign playlist?
Listen up, folks -- the music has always mattered in political campaigns, and 2012 is no exception.
Mr. Romney's campaign advance team knows this. Just as the candidate has transitioned from polite enigma to in-your-face streetfighter, so too has the soundtrack at his rallies, beginning with the patriotic anthem "Born Free" by Kid Rock ("Wild, like an untamed stallion,"), ending with a defiant, earsplitting Toby Keith cussin' and dissin' gas prices, illegal immigrants and other tea party-ish targets.
In contrast, the former Massachusetts governor's 2008 playlist included the relatively mild, Boston-flavored "Sweet Caroline" and "Dirty Water" by the Standells -- both staples at Beantown sporting events.
"A political rally that doesn't use music can sound hollow and incomplete, like a religious service without the hymns," said Deane Root, professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh and director of its Center for American Music. "The songs are a soundtrack for the campaign. Using songs in political campaigns cues the audience to take on attitudes toward whatever else they may be seeing or hearing."
Mr. Obama, a past master of social media, has released his own mix tape, fully downloadable on the music streaming service Spotify.com, as the campaign's "official" playlist, prompting more scrutiny than a Pravda pronouncement at the height of the Cold War.
"The president trades Clinton-era Fleetwood Mac nostalgia and sweet saxophone stylings for Arcade Fire and Florence + The Machine," wrote Nitasha Tiku in the high-tech blog BetaBeat.com, "but nods to the boomers with some James Taylor and Aretha Franklin, to Gen X with U2 and REO Speedwagon, and to people with questionable taste everywhere with Ricky Martin and Hootie frontman Darius Rucker."
First Published February 12, 2012 12:00 am
