The musical community has spoken and Barack Obama is the clear choice for today's pop musician. I did a quick survey of some music sites and blogs, just to see where some the world's most popular musicians stand on the upcoming election.
The results:
On the GOP side of the aisle: John Mellencamp, Boston, Van Halen, Foo Fighters and Bon Jovi have all requested that their songs be removed from the opening music of several prominent Republican campaigns, including John McCain's and Sarah Palin's.
For the Democrats: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Jay-Z, The Dead, The Allman Bros. and James Taylor have all played concerts supporting Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
It seems clear Barack and the Dems have your average, world-famous artist in an electoral lock-box. I think this makes sense for several reasons if you look at the above bands. Even the most famous of musicians don't make close to what many prominent Republican party constituents earn, salary-wise (think Big Oil). Jay-Z is an exception and certainly makes more than the $250,000+ Barack Obama has set for his business-tax threshhold. But he is still holding concerts for the candidate. This points to the fact that many artists are inherently social Democrats, even if they should be fiscal Republicans. If your art involves writing about the human condition (yes, Jay-Z writes about the human condition) you'd be more likely to affiliate yourself with a party aligned with helping the middle-class or poor, not with the economic trickle-down politics of the right.
But the political tides of this election season have trickled down far deeper than the current-day artists we've been talking about. A friend recently hipped me to a genius song written by Meter's drummer Zigaboo Modeliste, called Obama Groove. Please listen to this song for your musical health and political informedness.
Whoever you decide to vote for in three weeks, remember, 9 out of 10 musicians support Barack Obama. The tenth musician is Ted Nugent. And if you like Ted Nugent, please don't shoot any of your firearms at me.
2 comments:
A few months ago Laura suggested to me that I keep track of my reading via the website Goodreads.com. The site allows avid readers to track their reading, write reviews and offer suggestions to others that enjoy literary retreat.
Recently they conducted a poll asking who will you vote for in the presidential election.
As of right now, I just cast the 3900th vote, 70.4% of Goodreads members plan on voting for Obama compared to 22.7% for McCain.
Conclusion. . .
People that read often and enjoy reading will vote for Obama.
This must be one crafty candidate! Duping not only musicians but readers as well!?!
Well, I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that you must possess a little intelligence to either a) read or b) play music.
Conclusion, intelligent people are most likely to vote for Obama. Interesting...
Post a Comment