Barack Obama's iPod Pick [Devised by His Marketing Team]
The only gap in the semiotic code that is Obama's
iPod playlist is a bone or two to toss to
the white working class. Pasty-faced proles, generic
white trash and full-bore rednecks don't care much
for the ever-so-bourgeois senator from Illinois.
A Suggestion for Obama's iPod
"The masterfully selected contents of Obama's iPod, as reported by Rolling Stone magazine."Masterfully selected indeed! Could anyone believe that the tracks weren't selected by a his marketing meisters?
Eclectic Conservative] Tastes
The Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama showcased his diverse musical taste, ranging from Bob Dylan to Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen, after revealing the playlist on his iPod.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, to be published this Friday, the Illinois senator said he had "pretty eclectic tastes".
The list of bands reads like the acts at a summer music festival, with the Rolling Stones, Sheryl Crow and Ludacris all in the mix.
Obama said that, growing up, he listened to Elton John and Earth, Wind & Fire but that Stevie Wonder was his ultimate musical hero during the 70s.
The Stones' track Gimme Shelter topped his favourite songs from the band.
His selection also contained 30 songs from Dylan. "One of my favourites [for] the political season is [Dylan's] Maggie's Farm. It speaks to me as I listen to some of the political rhetoric."
In the song, Dylan sings about trying to be himself, "but everybody wants you to be just like them".
The jazz legends Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker were also included in the compilation.
Many of the musicians on Obama's iPod, such as Bruce Springsteen, are supporting his White House bid.
Earlier this month, Dylan said he believed Obama was redefining politics in the US and could bring change to a nation in upheaval.
"I've got to say, having both Dylan and Bruce Springsteen say kind words about you is pretty remarkable," Obama said. "Those guys are icons."
Obama said he had not met Springsteen but that the two had talked over the phone.
"Not only do I love Bruce's music, I just love him as a person," Obama said. "He is a guy who has never lost track of his roots, who knows who he is, who has never put on a front."
He added that, when speaking to the singer, he addressed him by his moniker the Boss. "You've got to," Obama said.
The candidate said he thought rap music was also helping to break down barriers within the music world. Indeed it was reported last month that Obama will make a cameo performance on the rap singer Q-Tip's next album.
However, he expressed concern over his daughters – Malia, nine, and Sasha, seven – listening to some rap songs.
"I am troubled sometimes by the misogyny and materialism of a lot of rap lyrics," he said, "but I think the genius of the art form has shifted the culture and helped to desegregate music."
He said the hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and the rappers Jay-Z and Ludacris were "great talents and great businessmen".
"It would be nice if I could have my daughters listen to their music without me worrying they were getting bad images of themselves," he added.
Obama appears on the cover of the Rolling Stone issue. The magazine endorsed him for president in March.
Barry's Politically Correct Musical Tastes [Source]
The presidential candidate's playlist covers
all the political bases.
Apart from those tricky working class whites...
During his slugfest with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama enraged baby-boomers by asserting that the United States needed to put all that psychodrama of the 60s behind it.
This could come back to haunt him in November, when he runs against a man who spent years being abused in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp during the 1960's. It's hard for people like that to move beyond all the psychodrama. It just is.
The masterfully selected contents of Obama's iPod, as reported by Rolling Stone magazine, suggests that the Illinois presidential hopeful is now, however, going out of his way to mend fences with the 80 million American born between 1946 and 1964.
Bob Dylan, Sixties icon par excellence, is on his playlist, as are Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones and everyone's favorite poet of the common man, Bruce Springsteen.
These boomer deities are joined by such M.O.R. heart throbs as Earth, Wind & Fire and Elton John, as well as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker, sacrosanct stalwarts whose once cutting-edge music now serves as coffee-house wallpaper everywhere.
The inclusion of Sheryl Crow, an artist who did not become famous in the 60s, but sounds like she should have, sends a powerful, reassuring message to Boomers. Mi casa es su casa. Mi iPod es su iPod.
Lest he be accused of deserting his base and pandering to the white middle-class, Obama's iPod does include selections by Jay-Z and Ludacris. Deftly, the candidate concedes that he does have reservations about the lyrics.
Baby-boomers love to hear this sort of thing, because that's the way middle-aged, white, wishy-washy liberals talk about hip-hop. "It's culturally incisive and politically vital. It speaks truth to power. It's the last bona fide innovation in pop music. I just wish it wasn't so damned...vulgar..."
The only gap in the semiotic code that is Obama's iPod playlist is a bone or two to toss to the white working class.
Pasty-faced proles, generic white trash and full-bore rednecks don't care much for the junior senator from Illinois, as Hillary's poll numbers demonstrated during the primary season.
A really Machiavellian politician would have gone out of his way to include a couple of tunes by Kenny Chesney or Garth Brooks, just to show he had his heart in the right place, his feet firmly planted in the dusty soil of the American Heartland.
But, in the end, Obama may have decided that would have been unforgivably calculating and cynical, like George Bush pretending to enjoy Akon.
Otherwise, Barack Obama's play list isn't much different than John Kerry's, Al Gore's, John Edwards', or Sheryl Crow's. Personally, I think he should have stolen Hillary's.
