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Obama's iPod
Thank you all for your contributions, here is my new insight into Obama, it won't be new for long:
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."
...The jazz legends Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker were also included...
The worship of Dylan and Wonder and be-bop jazz is consistent with my view of him as a detached, universalist cosmopolitan.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 25, 2008 at 03:37 PM in Music | Permalink
Comments
Eh... Obama Obsession? The nth post in less days on Obama. Do some McCain.
Posted by: JSK at Jun 25, 2008 3:47:43 PM
We're judging people based on their music taste now?
I was unaware we were back in high school :P
Posted by: Robert Olson at Jun 25, 2008 4:09:18 PM
SO Obama is a cosmopolitan who doesn't feel comfortable in the US...Running for President is just a thing he does...Like making real estate deals with Tony Rezko..
Posted by: jorod at Jun 25, 2008 4:18:43 PM
Was this salient because it was genuinely new, or because it confirmed what you already though you knew?
Posted by: TylerB at Jun 25, 2008 4:21:17 PM
Was this salient because it was genuinely new, or because it confirmed what you already though you knew?
Posted by: TylerB at Jun 25, 2008 4:21:26 PM
While I cannot fault him for enjoying Davis, Coltrane and Parker or the media for reporting the nearest it has to familiar jazz musicians, I would be more interested to know if he enjoyed some less obvious performers; perhaps Jackie McLean or Thad Jones.
I'd toast any presidential candidate who openly enjoyed Tom Waits. Captain Beefheart would also suffice.
It's a superficial judgment, but presidential campaigns are very often treated as superficial subjects.
At least he doesn't listen to Depeche Mode.
Posted by: Paludicola at Jun 25, 2008 4:24:23 PM
Having 30 Dylan on one's iPod is hardly enough to qualify as "worship". I have friends who own close to 30 Dylan albums.
Posted by: Chris G. at Jun 25, 2008 4:24:52 PM
Robert Olsen:
We're judging people based on their music taste now?
I was unaware we were back in high school :P
Ya know...the older I get, the more realize we really haven't moved that far away from it. ;)
Posted by: John V at Jun 25, 2008 4:25:32 PM
What are the odds those are things he wants people to think he listens to, as opposed to what he likes? As a politician, I imagine even he doesn't know the difference between those two things. To look at a politician's publicly stated preferences, and try to infer some deep meaning, is like psychoanalyzing a great sports star. There's no there there.
Posted by: eric at Jun 25, 2008 4:29:24 PM
I really enjoy listening to Rage Against the Machine, but their politics do not inform my worldview.
It would be a mistake to draw a similar conclusion from Obama's Ipod.
Posted by: Corey at Jun 25, 2008 4:43:58 PM
I was hoping he'd have "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott Heron on his ipod.
Posted by: david at Jun 25, 2008 5:01:42 PM
Bob Dylan is the real deal folks. I cannot be cynical about the motivations that Jewish man from Duluth, Minnesota who chose to sing the following lyrics in the Deep South during the civil rights era:
"A South politician preaches to the poor white man,
'You got more than the blacks, don't complain.
You're better than them, you been born with white skin,' they explain.
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game."
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Jun 25, 2008 5:15:38 PM
No, Obama's worship of Stevie Wonder is evidence not of Obama being a "detached, universalist cosmpolitan," but of an exotic Hawaiian youth's centripetal urge to root himself in the mainstream African-American urban culture that he knew about mostly from watching "Soul Train." Stevie Wonder was not an elite-only taste in the 1970s, he was admired at all levels and sold tons of records. Obams's love of Stevie Wonder presaged such concrete steps as rooting himself in the very parochial South Side of Chicago.
Tyler, you really should read Obama's "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance."
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jun 25, 2008 5:32:29 PM
When was the last leading American politician who admitted to liking music, in the sense of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven...?. Or even Scott Joplin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Duke Ellington?
Posted by: dearieme at Jun 25, 2008 5:36:00 PM
I would like to second the above. I think you'd have to back to Eisenhower to find a President with genuine culture, not mention a knowledge of history. (Reagan was a pretty insightful fellow, I must admit.) Otherwise it has been a pretty depressing group. Close to the bottom.
Posted by: critic at Jun 25, 2008 5:41:13 PM
Bob Dylan is a powerful figure for anyone who aspires to to musical greatness, but has a nightmarish singing voice.
Posted by: Darkened at Jun 25, 2008 5:46:23 PM
> I think you'd have to back to Eisenhower to find a President with genuine culture
I'm assuming this means Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven etc. from the post that is immediately above it.
Why is Bach more "genuine culture" than Rage Against the Machine or Stevie Wonder? What does "genuine culture" mean?
I'm not trying to be mean-spirited, I really want to know the answer to this - I had a discussion one time with an individual who argued that Americans were not as cultured because they did not support/like ballet/opera as much as football. Why does this make one uncultured? I never received a satisfactory answer, so I'm looking for one.
Posted by: AZ at Jun 25, 2008 6:45:56 PM
AZ,
"genuine culture" is a vague and ambiguous term used, in this case, to mean old and famous.
last i checked, mr clinton was also an accomplished saxophonist, so i'm not sure what dearieme's standard of musical appreciation is.
Posted by: anon at Jun 25, 2008 6:57:21 PM
"Detached, universalist cosmopolitan"? What in God's name is that code for? Does that make a country music fan like Bush an "engaged nativist bumpkin"?
On second thought, maybe you're on to something.
Posted by: kjb at Jun 25, 2008 7:11:59 PM
Didn't there used to be a term for this sort of person:
OPPORTUNIST
All the rest is butter on moldy bread.
Posted by: R Richard Schweitzer at Jun 25, 2008 7:21:03 PM
Hey, I'm a libertarian economics instructor and Stevie Wonder is my favorite (Steely Dan a close second). Stevie's a freakin' musical genius and everybody's been copying him since the 1970's.
Posted by: Mace at Jun 25, 2008 8:02:58 PM
Miles and Coltrane be-bop jazz? Miles basically gave that up in the 40s, and Coltrane, at least in his recorded repertoire, never played it. Miles had a mainstream following, at least in the late 50s-60s, which is why Columbia showered heavy bucks on him. And 'universalist cosmopolitan?' What the hell is that?
Posted by: steve at Jun 25, 2008 8:32:48 PM
If you don't know why Bach is "more genuine," you are really in a sorry state.
Posted by: critic at Jun 25, 2008 8:46:55 PM
I used to read Tyler's posts because I thought he was one of the smartest guys around. Now I read them for the same perverse reasons I stop flipping channels to watch Nancy Grace. They're effing hysterical.
Posted by: josh at Jun 25, 2008 8:54:39 PM
Check out the new iPol - Algorithm attempts to always play what you want to hear. However, ends up playing the same old songs over and over. Rarely works, but warranty ran out. Costs an arm and a leg.
He must be the only politician not to include U2. He makes up for it by using their City of Blinding Lights as his speech intro.
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 25, 2008 9:22:34 PM
