Music and Musicians in Presidential Election Campaigns: A Case Study of the 2012 American Election...

Music and Musicians inPresidential Election

CampaignsA case study on the 2012

American election

MUSI300Student No.: 200747592


Contents page

1.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2

2.1 Chapter One: Presidential campaigns, technology,

social media and music……….6

2.2 Advancements in

technology……………………………………………………………………………..7

2.3 User-generated

content……………………………………………………………………………………..8

2.4 Musicians’ online

endorsements………………………………………………………………………15

2.5 Presidential election campaigns Spotify

playlists………………………………………………18

2.6 The disadvantages of technology and social

media…………………………………………..20

2.7 Chapter One

conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………231


3.1 Chapter Two: Increasingly celebrity-centred politics

and musicians as part of the

campaign………………………………………………………………………………………………………….24

3.2 Changes in political

culture……………………………………………………………………………….25

3.3 Swing states and political

rallies………………………………………………………………………..29

3.4 Romney’s rally: Meat Loaf and the best of

Country…………………………………………..31

3.5 Obama’s rally: Jay-Z and Bruce

Springsteen………………………………………………………36

3.6 Chapter Two

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………41

4.1 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………43

5.1 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………46

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1.1 Introduction

The aim of this dissertation is to discuss how music and

musicians are used in political election campaigns. In

order to do this, I will focus on the 2012 American

election campaign and how, and most importantly why, the

two competing candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney,

employed the help of musicians and music in their fight

to become president of the USA. What I will also look at

is how the presidential candidates, musicians and the

public interacted with technology and social media

throughout the campaign. There has been a place for music

in election campaigns for decades, however, with the

increasingly digital and celebrity engrossed age that we

are living in the importance of a presidential candidate

displaying his or hers ability to interact with popular

culture is essential. As a result, it is relevant to look

at how and why music and musicians are used in political

election campaigns because it seems that now, more than

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ever, political parties are endeavouring to straddle the

line between political and celebrity culture.

The 2012 American election campaign was unique in its use

of technology and social media and this will be the focus

of my first chapter. What I mean by technology in this

context is the internet’s current form, drawing on the

idea of O’Reilly and Dougherty’s term Web 2.0 where

“typical practices of generating, tagging, blogging and

sharing have become mundane and routinized” (Beer, 2008:

227) for users and content is user-generated. The term

technology here also covers the increased availability of

internet available on computers and portable handsets

such as smart phones and tablets. It seems increasingly

likely that social media will, in years to come, become

one of the fundamental aspects of election campaigns

which is why it is so important to address its uses and

needs at this early stage. In the first chapter I will

look in particular at technology and social media’s

appeal to younger demographics by looking at the ways

that musicians, the candidates and the public utilised

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social media, such as Twitter and YouTube, to spread

their message, as well as looking at the uncontrollable

nature of technology. As a result of user generated

content, in the form of memes and videos, it was possible

for unwanted attention and focus on particular aspects of

the candidate or candidate’s supporters to be spread

around the internet causing embarrassment and ridicule

that was detrimental to the way that the candidate was

portrayed and perceived by the public. I will argue that

the ways in which the candidates used technology

reflected in the way that the internet represented them,

with the Democratic candidate Obama receiving a more

favourable online representation.

The “narrowing of the gap between politics and

entertainment” (Louw, 205:192) has led to the emergence

of the “celebrity politician” (Street, 2012: 346) and

this will be the focus of the first half of chapter two.

I will talk about the presidential candidate as celebrity

and how their interactions with music and musicians can

help to boost their ‘celebrity’ profiles and generate

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increased interest, but also sometimes fail. The second

half of chapter two will focus on how musicians were used

at campaign rallies, with particular focus on two events,

in an attempt to contextualise the first half of the

chapter. I will look at what musicians were used and the

reasons behind their selection in addition to examining

their performances and the ways in which these reflect

upon the candidate they are representing. I will argue

that in order for a musician to be successful at an event

such as a rally there must be legitimate reason for their

appearance; it is not enough to merely be performing as

if at a concert, the performance should be politically

meaningful if it is to be of use to the presidential

campaign.

There is not an excess of literature surrounding music

and political election campaigns, or indeed music and

political parties as a whole. I have drawn from a few

articles and books that have been directly relevant to my

work (Larson, 2009; Schoening and Kasper, 2012; Jackson

and Darrow, 2005) as well as from literature surrounding

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the changing political spectrum (Corner and Pels, 2003;

Wheeler, 2004) and the effects of celebrity endorsement

on politics (Brader, 2005). However, as I was fortunate

enough to be writing and researching this dissertation at

the same time as the 2012 election I was able to use the

technology I will argue has changed the way elections

work, to gather information on the election as it

unfolded. What was perhaps most useful in my search for

information was the Google service Google alerts. Google

alerts allow you to receive an email daily, weekly or

monthly, depending on your preference, which collates

articles, blogs and videos from around the internet based

on search terms you request. I set up three daily Google

alerts based on the search terms ‘Obama election music’,

‘Romney election music’ and ‘election campaign music’.

These emails allowed easy access to all the latest

developments in the campaign as well as an idea of what

was being said about the music aspect of the campaign by

online commentators. It was also important to use social

media networks to gather information from the candidates,

their supporters and the public to keep abreast of how

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social networks were being utilised throughout the

campaign.

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2.1 Chapter One: Presidential campaigns, technology, social media and music

This chapter will focus on the use of technology in the

2012 American election campaign. It will be argued in

this chapter that technology, the way it is used and

social media, in particular, has helped to engage youth

audiences. It will start by examining the differences

between the 2012 American election and its predecessors

by looking at how advancements in technology have changed

the scope of elections in ways that had previously not

been possible. I will look at the different uses of

technology by the two candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt

Romney, as well as at their online supporters and

opposers, both the famous and the everyday user, with the

hope to illustrate through this that Obama’s online

presence made him more appealing to a youth audience

whilst Romney’s somewhat more conservative online use

placed him in a less favourable light. I will argue that

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the increasing familiarity of technology and its ease of

access has allowed not only for presidential election

campaigns to reach their audiences in new and arguably

easier ways, such as through a Spotify playlist, but also

that it has allowed for celebrity musicians to engage

with a campaign on platforms that had been previously

non-existent. By this, I mean that social networking

sites such as Twitter were used by both the candidates

and the celebrities that endorsed them as a way of

gaining support. Furthermore, I will look at the ways

that technology is used by the electorate in either

support or opposition of the candidate and how the

internet and viral culture, through the likes of YouTube

and memes, has allowed for the everyday man’s voice to be

heard on a large platform.

2.2 Advancements in technology

As mentioned, what made the 2012 American election

campaign so different to those that had previously taken

place was its use of technology. However, it would be

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naïve, and wrong, to assume that this was the first

election campaign that had made use of technology in this

way. The 2000 American election campaign was the first

time that all candidates made use of the internet by

maintaining campaign websites. Indeed, Gore and Bush were

the first to use both audio and visual clips in their

online campaigns (Schoening and Kasper, 2012: 205). From

this, it is perhaps reasonable to state that what made

the 2012 American election campaign different to its

predecessors was not that technology was being used but

how it was being used, who it was being used by and what

is was being accessed on.

Technology is now one of the most important weapons in a

candidate’s armoury. Even in the four short years since

the 2008 election campaign, technology has made major

strides and is now, whether we realise it or not, a

dominant and almost inescapable part of our lives. I

would say that a major contributing factor to this is the

increasing ownership of smartphones. In 2008, 18.9% of

mobile users in the US owned a smartphone (Butcher,

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2008). Fast forward to the next election in 2012 and 45%

of all American adults own a smartphone, and amongst

those aged between 18 and 29 that number increases to 66%

(Maisto, 2012). This is indicative of a significant

change in lifestyle. It is now customary for people to be

able to access the news at any moment through their

smartphones that, for most people, are a constant

attachment on their person. Furthermore, it is not only

through traditional means that people are accessing their

news. Social media now acts as a news source for 27.8% of

the American population with newspapers only marginally

ahead of that at 28.8% (Laird, 2012). It would be both

foolish and damaging for a presidential candidate to

ignore these kinds of statistics when planning a

campaign.

What’s more, the traditionally apathetic 18-30

demographic is now much easier to reach through

technology. In the 2000 election 16.2million 18-29 year

olds voted and in the 2012 election between 22 and

23million 18-29 year olds voted (CIRCLE, 2012). This is a

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significant increase and it is widely thought to be

credited to the advent of social media and how it appeals

and reaches a youth audience in ways that traditional

forms of campaign advertising haven’t (Rosen, 2012).

Additionally, Obama secured 60% of the youth vote in 2012

which, though a decrease from his 66% youth vote in 2008,

was still significantly larger than Romney’s 36% youth

vote (Kingkade, 2012). Obama’s appeal to the youth

audience is supported by his own campaign’s use of

technology, which is significantly more up-to-date and

therefore youth-orientated than Romney’s, as well as how

he is generally represented on the internet which is what

the rest of the chapter will address.

2.3 User-generated content

Since the 2008 election, social media has significantly

developed. In 2008, Facebook had 44.3 million users and

Twitter had 3.4 million, now they respectively have 143.3

million and 24.1 million and have both become somewhat of

a ubiquitous presence in daily life (Mediabistro, 2012).

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It is not just the membership that has evolved but also,

the way that the sites work. There are many more aspects

to social media now than there was during the last

election such as ‘liking’, tagging and sharing which all

enable easier and faster forms of communicating. What’s

more, most major news and blog websites have links on

their pages where one can easily share that story through

personal social media accounts at the click of a button.

As a result of this, images and videos can now become

viral in a matter of hours as they spread around the

internet. A somewhat recent development to viral images,

however, is the meme. Although the term ‘meme’ has been

around for several decades, in a context of Web 2.0 a

meme is “used to describe the propagation of content

items such as jokes, rumours, videos or websites from

person to others via the internet” (Shifman, 2013: 362).

A meme will usually contain an image with accompanying

white, block text that people will understand when in

context as it is “impossible to identify them separately

from their manifestation in the outside world” (Shifman,

2013: 367). Memes have become a regular feature on

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Facebook walls and Twitter feeds and can be shared and

spread around the world within a matter of hours.

Furthermore, as part of Web 2.0 is users generating their

own content, people will create their own memes based on

what they have seen other people sharing creating

somewhat of a domino effect of images.

For a political party, this can have simultaneously good

and bad effects dependent on what the video or image is

and what party you’re supporting. During the first

presidential candidate debate of the 2012 American

election, Romney said that if he were to be made

president, “I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS…I like

PBS. I love Big Bird” (The Washington Post, 2012). PBS

stands for public broadcasting service and is a non-

profit television network in America and one of its most

famous shows is the children’s program Sesame Street

which is home to the fictional character Big Bird. This

simple, flyaway comment resulted in complete mockery of

Romney on social media websites through the form of

memes, which can be seen in Fig. 1. Whereas before, this

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comment may have earned a few snide remarks in various

newspaper or magazine articles, this comment became one

of the most memorable parts of the entire campaign

because of its almost instantaneous spread on social

media. Though these memes may seem light-hearted, it is

important to remember that social media users are more

likely to engage more with these images when they are

constantly appearing on their news feeds and being talked

about by friends. Furthermore, it is entirely likely,

judging from the statistics stated earlier in the

chapter, that social media users will learn about the

news this way rather than watching the debate themselves

or reading a news article about it.

Memes featuring Obama, however, seem much more

encouraging and supportive,

and of course had been inFig. 1: Romney ‘Big Bird’ memes

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circulation from his first term as president too. There

is one meme of Obama that is known as the ‘Not Bad Obama’

meme, which was created from a photo taken during a visit

to the UK catching Obama as he was pulling a face that

depicts a mixture of mild shock and approval (Lee, 2012).

Obama acknowledged this meme during an AMA (ask me

anything) session with the website Reddit during the

election. Obama sat and answered questions from online

users for half an hour and signed off by saying:

“I want to thank everybody at Reddit for

participating - this is an example of how technology

and the internet can empower the sorts of

conversations that strengthen our democracy over the

long run… By the way, if you want to know what I

think about this whole Reddit experience - NOT BAD!”

(Reddit, 2012)

This was a fantastic PR exercise for Obama as it

simultaneously generated a lot of attention and interest,

reached a lot of people and demonstrated Obama’s ability

to interact with current technology. Furthermore, a link

was provided on the page to Obama’s official campaign

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website where a mailing list sign up for information on

the campaign was presented alongside a meme of the site’s

own making, a screen shot of which can be seen in Fig. 2,

once again demonstrating Obama’s more knowing and

integrated use of technology.

The memes

that have been generated for each candidate seem to be

reflective of their audience; Obama has the greater youth

support, as he did in 2008, because his “internet-driven

campaigns especially engaged young people” (Hollihan,

2009: 2) and this is very evident in the way youth-

orientated online culture favours Obama over Romney in

almost all situations.

Fig. 2: Obama meme on Reddit link to barackobama.com

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YouTube was another version of social media that had

developed from the 2008 election. Both candidates had

their own YouTube channels though their amount of

subscribers and views of videos are very different. Obama

has 433,190 subscribers and an accumulated 291,753,161

video views whereas Romney has 35,990 subscribers and a

total of 33,951,564 video views. Romney’s page was

created on the 15th August 2006 and Obama’s on 5th

September 2006 (YouTube, 2013). Considering that the

pages were both created within a month of each other

there is a significant difference between the two.

However, it is worth remembering that although the pages

have existed for the same amount of time Obama was

president for four of those years meaning that he had a

much higher profile than Romney.

YouTube, however, has always been an important part of

the Web 2.0 generation because the majority of videos on

there are user generated rather than from an official

channel such as that of Obama and Romney and this is when

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it is at its most powerful. As a result of this, there

can be videos broadcast that could be detrimental to a

presidential candidate’s campaign but is completely out

of their control. The 2012 election was littered with

parody and spoof videos that were inspired by both the

election itself as well as popular culture. In the summer

of 2012, South Korean pop star Psy’s music video Gangnam

Style went viral around the globe and by Decemember had

become the first ever YouTube video to reach over one

billion views (BBC, 2012). The song and video itself is,

at surface level, a funny video of a K-Pop star with a

catchy chorus and replicable dance moves. When looked at

in more detail, however, the song is a satirical take on

the Gangnam neighbourhood of South Korea’s capital city,

Seoul, and its own sense of “self-importance and

ostentatious wealth” (Fisher, 2012). The most popular

YouTube video concerning the US election was a spoof

version of Psy’s Gangnam Style in the version of Mitt Romney

Style (Inquirer, 2012). This video was uploaded by popular

online video creater College Humour on 8th October 2012

and, as of May 2013, has over 47 and a half million

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views. The video has an actor playing Mitt Romney singing

along to personalised lyrics whch are included in the

video as sub-titles. The fact that the lyrics are

included as sub-titles is perhaps a somewhat covert

political move so that the people watching can be in no

doubt of the message being sent through in the video. In

an imitation of Psy’s original video, this video shows

‘Mitt Romney’ in a series of typical ‘rich person’

situations, based on the fact that Romney is rumoured to

have a net worth of over $250million (Cohan, 2012), such

as playing polo, golf and attending benefits which the

video makers have portrayed here as both pompous and

ridiculous.

Furthermore, throughout the election there was much

speculation about the amount of tax Romney had paid and

how much of his money was tied up in offshore accounts as

a way of evading tax. The video incorporates these

themes, as can be seen in the left hand screenprint of

the video in Fig. 3, the lyrics “in and out of tax

loopholes” are in the song, referring to the reasons as

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to why he has paid such low amounts of tax for how much

he has earnt (BBC, 2012). There are also references to

his wealth such as in the right hand screenprint of Fig.

3 mentioning that he has a private jet. Although these

are delivered in a humourous manner they work at

distancing Romney from the everyday citizen who lives a

very different life, and as such, as one who could not

understand the concerns and needs of the majority of the

electorate which could have a very negative effect on the

way people view Romney, and consequently place their

vote.

The video also mentions another unfortunate moment in the

Romney campaign, which highlights the dangers of

technology. Romney was caught on video at a private

fundraiser saying that

47% of voters would vote Obama regardless because “they

Fig. 3: Screenshots from Mitt Romney Style

22


believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to

housing…these are people who pay no income tax”, before

also saying that “my job is not to worry about those

people” (Good, 2013). For obvious reasons this caused

uproar in the press as, in essence, Romney admitted that

it was not his

priority to help

the lower income

families and

individuals who benefit from government help. Fig. 4 is a

screenshot of this moment in the video. It is a re-

enactment of the private fundraiser where ‘Romney’ can be

seen placing a 47% sticker on the back of a waiter. This

is somewhat ironic as it was revealed that the person who

had leaked the video was a member of the waiting staff at

the event (Good, 2013). By mentioning this incident

again, the video is continuing its satire delivery laced

with reminders that Romney is a member of the elite and

extremely far removed from the majority of citizens in

America.

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2.4 Musicians’ online endorsements

Although I will elaborate more on this subject in chapter

two, it is necessary to consider briefly now why a

politician would want to use a celebrity to endorse their

presidential campaign. The primary motivation is that

politicians sometimes find it difficult to connect and

make themselves appear relevant to a youth audience. As

it is known that “similarity between receivers and

senders of messages increases the persuasiveness of the

message” (Jackson and Darrow, 2005: 93) it makes sense

that a politician would rather a celebrity or musician

who has a pre-existing connection with their fans to

spread the politician’s message by showing their fan base

that they believe in that politician and so should they.

Fig. 4: Screenshot from Mitt Romney Style

24


Furthermore, it was found in a study that “celebrity

endorsement increases the probability of respondents

agreeing with the statement in three out of four cases”

(Jackson and Darrow, 2005: 90). In order to demonstrate

this I will look at the political endorsements received

by musicians on the popular social networking site

Twitter.

There were lots of musicians, among other celebrities,

who endorsed the Obama campain via their Twitter

accounts. There was less support online for Romney from

musicians and I think that this is probably because of

the musicians who were backing the Romney campaign, such

as Meat Loaf, Gene Simmons and Ted Nugent, do not have

the same online presence that Obama’s modern and relevant

to young people supporters such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry

and Will.I.Am do. Everybody who is anybody seemingly has

a Twitter account now and it is used frequently in press

reports, indicating its growing importance in society. As

mentioned earlier, Twitter has features that allow for

people to retweet comments made by celebrities on their

25


own pages. This means that a single tweet from a musician

can then be retweeted by any number of their millions of

followers to that person’s individual followers, who can

then see the message and retweet if they wish and so on.

Jackson and Darrow found in their survey of how political

statements made by celebrities influenced young Candian

people that “first time voters were more likely to say

they became interested because so many celebrities were

encouraging people to vote” (2005: 81). In the 2012

American election campaign, first time voters seemed to

be a focus of several musicians on their twitter feeds

but most particularly Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. In the

run up to the election day Katy Perry used Twitter as a

tool to encourage young people to go and vote by engaging

with a younger audience by changing the attention from

the actual politics and instead focuses on what she will

be wearing to the voting polls and asks her followers to

send her pictures of their outfits, as seen in Fig. 5. By

giving her young fans the chance to be retweeted by her

(an accolade desired by many) she is inadvertently

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encouraging young people to vote by offering rewards and

showing her fans that it’s something that’s important to

her.

Similarly, Lady Gaga encouraged her fans to vote by using

a hashtag (#). In the world of Twitter a hashtag is used

in a tweet to act as a type of earmark for what’s being

said. If used enough times then a hashtag comment can

become a trend which has its own page where all the

tweets containing that hashtag are displayed. Lady Gaga

is the second most followed Twitter user with over

33millions followers (Twitter Counter, 2013) so when she

creates a hashtag it is understandably effective in its

aim. In Fig. 6 is a Lady Gaga tweet from the 5th November

2012, in it she uses the hashtag #youthempowerment as

part of a reminder for people to go and exercise their

right to vote. Since Gaga’s entrance onto the music scene

she has taken on the role of voice of the under-

represented and champion of the outsider and has

Fig. 5: Screenshot of Katy Perry tweet

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considerable influence over a large number of young

people. The voice of someone such as her in Obama’s

election campaign is invaluable as she has the power to

reach so many that a strait-laced politician could not.

The amount of users that Twitter has, and the number of

people who follow the musicians endorsing election

campaigns, should not be overlooked. Twitter is a

powerful resource and despite the limitations on how much

can be said in a tweet it has the power to spread a

message and plant an idea to prompt users to research

further for themselves especially when those spreading

the message act as idols to thousands of impressionable

young fans.

2.5 Presidential election campaign Spotify playlists

Fig. 6: Screenshot of Lady Gaga tweet

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It is worth briefly pausing here to look at another way

both presidential candidates used technology and music in

their campaigns. Spotify is a European music streaming

service that was only made available in America in 2011,

it enables users to stream music as well as create and

share playlists on both computers and mobile devices. As

of July 2012, Spotify had more than 3 million US users

who had streamed between them more than 13 billion songs

(Dahud, 2012), which is perhaps part of the reason the

candidates chose to spread their campaign into this area

of social networks too. Obama was the first presidential

candidate to create and publish a Spotify playlist, in

early February 2012, to accompany his campaign, it was

entitled “2012 Campaign playlist” and noted that it

contained “picks by the campaign staff – including a few

of the president’s favourites” (Gilbert, 2012). This

seems like a somewhat wise point to clarify; by saying

that the songs were picked by his team rather than him

alone Obama is taking the safer and strategic route of

removing himself from potential backfire from both the

artists and the public questioning whether or not he

29


would really listen to a particular song. Obama had 28

songs on his playlist covering a range of genres, eras

and levels of popularity (Williot, 2012) showcasing a

willingness to cater for everybody, as well as

demonstrating his cultural capital. What is noticeably

absent, however, is the genre of hip-hop and rap, which

is odd considering how much support and endorsement Obama

has received from its artists. It is perhaps because of

the controversial themes that seem to go hand in hand

with rap and hip-hop such as misogyny, violence and foul

language that Obama’s team felt it would be inappropriate

to include it on the playlist. As consolation, however,

there are several artists on there such as Al Green who

are part of the genres from which rap and hip-hop was

spawned.

Romney’s campaign team also released a Spotify playlist a

month after Obama’s. I would go as far as to suggest here

that the Romney campaign did this only because Obama’s

had and didn’t want to seem out of touch or on an uneven

playing ground. Romney tweeted that as he spent a lot of

30


time on the road campaigning, he needed good music and

linked to a Spotify playlist which contained 19 songs

(Edwards-Levy, 2012) from a less varied selection of

artist. The selection does, however, seem mostly to fit

with Romney’s character. There is a lot of country music

on the playlist, perhaps included in a nod to the heavily

Republican states of the South, as well as some classical

popular musicians such as Roy Orbison and even a song by

contemporary friendly rock stars The Killers. The lack of

variety, and only one song from a female artist, would

suggest that Romney is not as all-encompassing as Obama

and this was part of the reason that online commentators

declared Obama as the winner of the ‘who has better music

taste’ articles that appeared online after the

publications of the playlists (Williot, 2012; Grant,

2012; Mellody, 2012). Releasing Spotify playlists may

seem somewhat irrelevant, but it allows for the

candidates to be understood at a more basic, human level

as someone that is not that different to the average

American who relaxes by listening to music too. It allows

connections to be forged between voter and candidate that

31


may be based on something as seemingly artificial as

music but it has still allowed for a level of engagement

with the candidate, which is exactly the desired outcome

of creating playlists such as these.

2.6 The disadvantages of technology and social media

Before concluding this chapter, it must be remembered

that social media is not always a good thing and can

garner unwanted attention for candidates. There was two

unfortunate incidents in September of the 2012 election

campaign related to Madonna that “created a viral

headache” (Parker, 2012) for the Obama campaign team. At

one of her concerts Madonna called urged her fans to vote

for Obama but then called him a “black Muslim” which

Obama is not. Then, a few weeks later Madonna started to

take her clothes off at another concert to reveal she had

a temporary Obama tattoo across the bottom of her back

(see Fig. 7). Though Madonna is a highly influential and

well-known star these two separate acts were detrimental

to the Obama campaign because they provided such easy

32


targets to be mocked. Madonna’s Obama tattoo quickly

became known on the Internet as her ‘Obama tramp stamp’;

a derogatory term for someone who has a tattoo on their

lower back (where Madonna’s Obama was written). Madonna

also had to explain that her “black Muslim” comment was

ironic (The Guardian, 2012) which only kept the subject

in the headlines for longer, something that Obama’s press

team would not have wanted.

Another embarrassing moment in the campaign for Obama

was, again, a result of social media. The rapper Snoop

Dogg posted on his Instagram account a photograph of a

hand written list of reasons why he was not going to vote

for Romney and was going to vote for Obama which can be

Fig. 7: Madonna’s fake Obama ‘tramp stamp’

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seen in Fig. 8. Even without the list, Snoop Dogg is not

the ideal musician endorser for any presidential

candidate owing to his public and unapologetic use of

marijuana, his previous criminal convictions and general

controversial nature. Snoop Dogg is an ideal example of

how difficult it can be to navigate the somewhat fine

line between campaigning with a musician endorser who has

the right credentials on paper, in terms of record sales

and mainstream popularity, but doesn’t satisfy the

somewhat more approachable personality that is needed for

the ideal musician endorser. In his note, Snoop Dogg’s

list of reasons contains foul language, racial slurs,

misogynistic views and violent threats. This is something

that no political party or candidate would want to be

associated with, even if it was in support of them,

because it would suggest that the party found these views

acceptable when they are not.

34


musician endorser. In his note, Snoop Dogg’s list of

reasons contains foul language, racial slurs,

misogynistic views and violent threats. This is something

that no political party or candidate would want to be

associated with, even if it was in support of them,

because it would suggest that the party found these views

acceptable when they are not.

Fig. 8: Screenshot of Snoop Dogg’s Instagram account photo of

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2.7 Chapter One Conclusion

This chapter sought to demonstrate the impact that

technology and social media have had upon the 2012

American election campaign, as used by the candidates,

the public and musicians. Obama’s stronghold on

technology is demonstrated through his willingness to

interact with new technology such as Reddit and Spotify

in attempts to reach audiences that are notoriously

difficult to interact with. It is perhaps as a result of

this that Obama is largely represented favourably on the

internet whereas Romney tended to be a figure of

ridicule. The internet, technology and social media are

very much the domain of the younger generations who are

more likely to “post links to political material,

encourage others to take political action, belong to a

political group on a social networking site” (Rainie et

al, 2012) and it is likely because of this that the

Democrats had more online support than the Republicans;

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they were simply better represented in a forum more

suited to liberal tendencies.

3.1 Chapter Two: Increasingly celebrity centred politics

and musicians as part of the campaign

This chapter will look more closely at exactly why

musicians are used in election campaigns, by focusing on

one particular aspect of the campaign. Obviously

musicians are not the only category of celebrity to be

used as part of an election campaign; there are also

appearances along the way from sport stars, film stars,

TV actors and even ex-politicians who have embraced an

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exchange into celebrity culture. What is perhaps the

correct question to ask is what is it about musicians

that set them apart from other celebrities and why is

this important? Music is tied into every aspect of life;

it is present in both celebration and mourning, as a way

of personal expression and collective identity and a

cause of division and bonding. Music can move people in a

way that film, television, literature and sport cannot.

It speaks a universal language that transcends barriers

of nationality, age, race and gender and it is these

reasons that sit at the root of why politicians want to

use music and musicians in their election campaigns. I

will split this chapter into two sections. For the first

section I wish to look at the changes in political

culture and how musicians fit into this. It is essential

to first establish this in order to create a foundation

for the rest of the chapter; celebrity and political

culture have merged and it is necessary to understand the

consequences of this. Secondly, I will look at how the

two presidential candidates in 2012 campaigned in swing

states in order to cement my work from the first section

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into context. A swing state, also known as a battleground

state, is one of a small amount of states in America that

does not have a determined party allegiance for the

election. I will look at the ways in which the

presidential candidates attempted to enthuse the members

of the electorate who reside in swing states and how

musicians played an important role in this.

3.2 Changes in political culture

Although work by Larson, Schoening and Kasper is quick to

assure that music, and indeed musicians, have been part

of election campaigns for decades I would hasten to

specify that it is only in the very recent past, of the

past ten years or so, that musicians have become such an

inherent and colourful part of campaigning. The most

apparent reason for this is that there has been a major

shift in the representation of the political world. John

Corner and Dick Pels have said that:

“The mass visibility that is afforded by modern

mediated politics has foregrounded issues of style,

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appearance and personality, breaking down some of

the fences that separate politics from entertainment

and political leadership from media celebrity.”

(2003: 2)

What is important to take from this is that the change is

largely due to the media. As I mentioned in chapter one,

people now access their news in different ways. The ready

availability of the news has resulted in a culture where

news is portable, constant and easily accessible, and

rivalled by so many alternative news sources that it

would be not only implausible but impossible to expect

the way that people consume news to stay the same. News

channels have become “outlets for entertainment”

(Harrington and McNair, 2012: 50) and as such, so has the

news that it reports. Furthermore, it has been pointed

out that publishers, producers and editors have found

difficulty in “making politics interesting to their

audiences and readerships, particularly to the young”

(Corner and Pels, 2003: 6) and it is perhaps as a result

of this that, not only is social media heavily employed

by news outlets and political parties alike, but also

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that a more celebrity centred way of reporting and

campaigning is emerging. When I refer to celebrity

centred campaigning here, I do not mean just the use of

celebrities in a campaign but also the idea of the

candidate as celebrity.

John Street has said that Barack Obama’s election in 2008

seemed “to confirm the arrival of the celebrity

politician” (2012: 346) and to some extent this is true.

Previous presidents such as Bill Clinton could arguably

be considered as a celebrity but I think the difference

is that for Obama there wasn’t a period of transition.

Obama appeared as a celebrity in his own right from the

beginning, rather than progressing from politician to

celebrity, and “effortlessly mixed with celebrity

endorsers” (Wheeler, 2004: 416) giving him an air of

‘coolness’ and authenticity. What I mean by authenticity

here is a candidate who is truthful, but most

importantly, believable in their interactions with

musicians and celebrities as well as in their claims

about what music they enjoy. That’s to say, for a

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politician to be authentic it must be plausible that what

they’re saying is true and not just a ploy in order to

make them seem more in touch with certain demographics.

It is precisely this, I think, that is the key to success

in modern politicians; comfortably mixing between the

political and celebrity worlds. Modern politics is much

more personalised than before (Corner and Pels, 2003: 7)

and is increasingly focused on the leaders of political

parties who are, essentially, “packaged and sold like

products of the culture industry” (Kellner, 2009: 715).

In order to appeal to younger demographics and appear

more ‘in touch’ with popular culture, politicians will

often be asked to state what music they listen to in

interviews. It is often difficult for the politician to

strike the right balance between appearing simultaneously

‘in touch’ and truthful. This line of question is often

most hazardous for politicians from conservative parties

as, traditionally, their opinions lie opposite to many

musicians who often consider themselves to lie on the

left, more liberal, side of the political spectrum

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resulting in some embarrassing situations that earn

unwanted press coverage for the politician. During

Romney’s 2012 election campaign he used the song Panic

Switch by the Silversun Pickups, which resulted in their

singer, Brian Aubert, telling the press that not only

could the Republicans no longer use that song, but that

Silversun Pickups “don’t like the Romney campaign at all”

(Rolling Stone, 2012). Incidents like this are becoming

increasingly common in the political world. In the UK,

Conservative prime minister David Cameron was embroiled

into a battle of words with both Morrissey and Johnny

Marr of The Smiths after Cameron had said he liked them,

and they consequently ‘forbid’ him to, with Marr saying

“he shouldn’t like us because we’re not his kind of

people” (Quinn, 2013). This, I think, summarises the

issue of whenever an artist or a band take umbrage at

being associated with a politician; they do not want

their music to represent beliefs that are not their own

which also ties into the idea of a politician having to

represent themselves authentically in order to cross the

threshold into celebrity culture. Indeed, politicians

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often seek out associations with musicians because of

“the general cultural value placed on cool, and the

notion of authenticity associated with it” (Street, 2003:

96). Most musicians are considered to be cool in our

culture, and part of the reason that some are considered

cool is because they are seen as authentic.

Unfortunately, however, “cool is never directly

political, and politics, almost by definition, can never

be cool” (Pountain and Robins, 2000: 171). Therefore, if

a politician has a public relationship with a musician

then they, by association, are deemed to be slightly

cooler in terms of relevance in popular culture. It is

important to add, however, that it takes more than just

appearing alongside a musician or celebrity for it to be

believable that those people would be able to create a

plausible relationship, be that as friends or co-workers,

in real life. Audiences, or rather the public, now “read

political characters and taste their style, enabling them

to judge their claims of authenticity” (Corner and Pels,

2003: 7) in the same way that they would go about judging

this in a celebrity.

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I have already mentioned that conservative parties, such

as the Republicans, have more difficulty relating to

musicians than their rivals the Democrats do, and I think

that a reason for this is because relating to musicians

and artists simply doesn’t tie into their image or

policies. Part of Mitt Romney’s plan if he were to be

elected president was to eliminate the National Endowment

for the Arts (NEA), which provides funding for the arts

(Hiebert, 2012). It is quite understandable, then, that

Romney does not seem like a natural bedfellow for most

musicians based on the simple fact that he does not

support their interests. Sometimes, government funding is

the only way to ensure that arts programs are kept

running and as such supporting a candidate that wishes to

stop this would seem somewhat like turning your back

against your own. Obama, on the other hand, has very much

been an advocate of the arts since his election in 2008.

During his 2012 election campaign his budget plans

included increasing the funding for the NEA by 5.5%

(Kavner, 2012), which is obviously in direct opposition

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to Romney’s plans. At the root of why Democrats tend to

work better with musicians than Republicans do is that

they share similar views and political goals. It is

relatively easy to find a liberal musician, and while not

impossible, it is definitely harder to find a

conservative one. The Republicans are somewhat limited

with the pool of musicians from whom they can borrow

music or campaign with and this is perhaps why public

relationships between Republicans and musicians are

harder to see as authentic because it is more a matter of

needs must than a collaboration of shared interests and

goals.

3.3 Swing states and political rallies

Now that I have established how the political world has

changed to adjust to a more celebrity dominated culture I

would like to look at examples of how this is reflected

in the ways of campaigning. As I mentioned in the

introduction of this chapter, I will look at how Obama

and Romney campaigned in the most crucial swing state,

46


Ohio, and why, at the most important and game changing

part of the campaign, it was decided that musicians

should be used. I will look at the similarities and

differences between the Republican and Democrat candidate

rallies and how both the leaders and the musicians

conducted themselves, and the implications of this.

In order to fully understand the importance of a swing

state I think it necessary to briefly explain the way

that swing states affect the way that the American voting

system works. America votes using the Electoral College,

which is “made up of 538 electors who cast votes to

decide the President and Vice-President of the United

States” (Huffington Post, 2012). For a president to be

elected he or she must receive at least 270 electoral

votes. These votes are spread out amongst the states and

the District of Columbia according to their size, for

example, as the biggest state California has 55 electoral

votes which is the largest any state has.

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In the 2012 election the most important swing state was

Ohio for two main reasons. Firstly, it had a decisive 18

electoral votes, which if given to Obama would secure his

lead. Secondly, Ohio has historically been the game

changer for Republican candidates as no Republican has

ever won an election if they haven’t won the state of

Ohio (Washington Post, 2012). From this, it is

understandable that so much attention was placed on Ohio

with both Obama and Romney visiting the state multiple

times campaigning. What is interesting is that both

candidates decided to take musicians with them to this

crucial swing state in an attempt to win more voters.

Turnout is essential when attempting to win a swing

state. As the votes are worth so much it is crucial that

the candidates try to encourage as many people as

possible to vote. As a result of this, both Romney and

Obama paid much attention to Ohio throughout their

campaign with Obama formally starting his campaign in May

2012 with a rally held at Ohio State University (Landler,

2012), indicating the importance of the state right from

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the beginning. Although Romney did not start his campaign

in Ohio, his first rally was held in New Hampshire, which

was also a swing state (Kucinich, 2012). There are two

Ohio rallies, however, that I would like to look at in

detail. Both took place at the end of the campaign trail,

highlighting the importance of the voters in Ohio and

how, even at that late stage of the election, they still

had the power to influence the election outcome.

3.4 Romney’s Rally: Meat Loaf and the best of Country

Romney’s rally was held in front of a 12,000 strong crowd

at a high school football stadium in Defiance, Ohio on

25th October 2012. Performing alongside Romney at this

rally were the musicians Meat Loaf, Randy Owen and duo

Big & Rich. Big & Rich and Owen hail from country music

backgrounds while Meat Loaf could be considered a rock

star, albeit a somewhat theatrical one who wouldn’t be

considered as part of the rock canon. Meat Loaf and Owen

are aged 65 and 63 years old respectively and Big & Rich

are 49 and 39. Their combined star appeal is somewhat

49


dubious; Meat Loaf’s last top 10 single in America was in

1993, Randy Owen has never had an American top 10 hit

with either his solo career or with his band, Alabama,

but Alabama did dominate the US country charts in the

1980s and early 1990s and Big & Rich’s only top 10 single

was in 2000, although they too have had more success in

the US country charts. From this, it is quite easy to

establish that this set of musicians are not the most

relevant that Romney could have chosen in terms of appeal

to a younger audience. Furthermore, they are all white,

middle to upper class men, which is hardly a

representation of the electorate. Why then were they

chosen? The average age of a Republican supporter is

about 50 years old and 87% of Republicans are white

(Loop21, 2012), perhaps suggesting that these musicians

were chosen not in an attempt to lure new voters but as

an appeal to their existing ones, or that, as mentioned

previously, the Republicans were restricted in finding

musicians who would be willing to perform and represent

them.

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Romney’s rally both started and finished with music. On a

stage separate to where Romney will speak, John Rich

starts the rally by introducing Meat Loaf to the crowd as

a “rock legend and American icon” who has sold over 100

million records. Rich is attempting to get the crowd

excited by highlighting Meat Loaf’s star status, as well

as engaging with them by asking them questions that they

can respond to with a cheer. Meat Loaf’s first song of

the evening is If it ain’t broke, break it from his most recent

album Bat Out of Hell III. He is evidently a performer no

longer in his prime in terms of fitness and his voice has

somewhat deteriorated leaving his performance breathless

and somewhat karaoke rather that of a Grammy winner.

After his first song Meat Loaf talks to the crowd about

why they should vote for Romney. He tells them, between

panting breaths, that he has never been political but he

is now because he considers the 2012 election “the most

important election in the history of the United States”.

Meat Loaf then refers to the third presidential debate

between Romney and Obama where foreign policy was

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discussed resulting in Obama telling Romney that his

proposed policies were out-dated and that the cold war

had ended 20 years ago (Baker and Cooper, 2012). Meat

Loaf takes exception to this and tells the crowd that

Obama “needs to understand Putin and Russia”, implying

that they are a potential threat. Unfortunately, instead

of rallying up the crowd this is a somewhat cringe worthy

and embarrassing moment for both Meat Loaf and the

Republicans as the crowd do not respond to this in the

way one would imagine Meat Loaf had hoped them to,

leaving him to move quickly onto encouraging a Mitt

Romney chant. Meat Loaf incorporates this chant into his

talk about Romney being the man to guide America through

stormy weather and this neatly ties into his next song

Stand in the storm, which is about sticking together when

times are hard. What is most interesting about this song,

however, is that the original song has a section in the

middle which features the rapper Lil’ Jon. The original

song also features Trace Adkins and Mark McGrath and

though both them and their parts are missing at the Ohio

rally, Lil Jon’s part is kept in despite his absence.

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What’s more, Lil’ Jon is an Obama supporter and had

tweeted a very vocal stance, which can be seen in Fig. 9,

against Romney mere weeks before this rally.

Though there was never any comment from Lil Jon on his

vocals being used at the Romney rally, one must question

why it was decided to keep them in when it would have

been easy to rearrange the song and not include that

particular section. Perhaps it was felt that a rap would

be able to add a more contemporary feel to the event when

its main performers were all middle aged and from genres

not at the hub of mainstream popular culture.

Randy Owens performed next, playing a set of three non-

political, country songs from his personal repertoire.

The last song that he plays, Dixieland Delight, is a song that

was originally released with his band Alabama and he

Fig. 9: Screenshot of Lil’ Jon tweet

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encourages the crowd to sing along and wave their arms in

the air too. This crowd participation is essentially

acting as a form of advertisement for the candidate it is

representing as “feelings of enthusiasm urge them

[voters] to stick with allegiances” (Barder, 2005:390).

If the crowd are having a good time then it is because

Romney has chosen this entertainment for them as a

representation of both what he likes and what he thinks

his voters will like, and as a way to deepen a sense of

associative memory of having fun and feeling positive and

enthused with Romney.

The next use of music in the rally was Romney’s entrance,

which consisted of walking down a type of runway to reach

the podium where he would be addressing the crowd. Romney

was accompanied by Kid Rock’s Born Free on his walk to his

stage and this song was also his official campaign song

(Montgomery, 2012). Campaign songs “capture the specific

intersection between culture and politics” (Larson, 2009:

6) and though Romney’s campaign song is not explicitly

political, I think it is very revealing of the way that

54


the Republicans interact with popular culture. Romney

couldn’t choose just any campaign song because there

aren’t many musicians willing to represent the Republican

party, as mentioned earlier in the chapter, and Kid Rock

represents one of the few who is willing to have their

song used in this nature.

To finish the rally, Romney was joined on stage by Meat

Loaf, Randy Owens and Big & Rich who came together to

sing a version of American the Beautiful. In what was most

likely meant to be a rousing and emotional tribute to

their country, a somewhat different reaction occurred.

The singers seemed not to have practiced together, and

despite Rich and Owens working together in the sense that

they sing in the same style, Meat Loaf was overly

dramatic in his execution and unfortunately off key too.

Romney, in the middle of the group as they were singing,

looks awkward and outwardly laughs at Meat Loaf’s

attempts at reaching the higher notes, which can be seen

in Fig. 10. The performance achieved the opposite of what

it set out to in that it became a spectacle of ridicule

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in the press. Several articles about the rally focused on

mostly mocking the performance with adjectives like

‘wails’, ‘screams’ and ‘destroys’ being used to sum up

the ending of Romney’s rally in the state that was the

deciding factor in whether or not he was to become the

next president of the USA (Zavan, 2012; Hines, 2012;

Ferguson, 2012).

3.5 Obama’s Rally: Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen

Fig. 10: Romney joined onstage at the Ohio rally

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The rally that I wish to look at for Obama was one held

at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio on the 5th

November 2012 in front a crowd of 15,500 (Gomez, 2012).

President Obama had selected Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z

to perform alongside him. Both artists are politically

motivated and have been very vocal Obama advocates who

also supported him through his 2008 election. Bruce

Springsteen is 63 years old and has been a prominent part

of American popular culture as a singer-songwriter since

the 1970s. He has regularly released studio albums since

1973, seventeen in total, eight of which have reached the

number one position in the US album charts and only one

of the fifteen albums released since 1975 has not entered

the top 5 US album charts proving his consistent

popularity and relevance. He was named number 23 in

Rolling Stone’s Greatest Artists of All Time list

(Rolling Stone, 2013). Jay-Z is 43 years old and a

dominant member of hip-hop culture, as well as mainstream

pop culture. He has released eleven studio albums since

1996 and the past nine have reached the US album charts

number one position. He has collaborated with many other

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influential members of both pop and hip-hop music,

including his wife Beyoncé. Jay-Z and Beyoncé have

consistently been labelled as one of the most influential

power couples in history (Kellaway, 2013) and their joint

advocacy of the Obama campaign as well as their joint

power and influence is most certainly not something that

should be overlooked.

This rally was held the day before Election Day so

obviously it was of upmost importance to try and persuade

as many people as possible to go and vote for Obama.

Springsteen was the first to take to the stage, which

like in Romney’s rally, was a different stage to the one

where Obama would address the crowds. Springsteen’s

performance is focused and his motivation is evident.

Yes, he is there as a musician but he is also there as

someone who has an agenda. Every song has been selected

from his extensive repertoire as one with a message that

can be linked to the Obama campaign. The first song to be

played is No Surrender and Springsteen delivers it in the

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way that he performs the entire set; strong, sincere and

with authentic emotional attachment.

After his first song he tells the crowd that it is “great

to hear the power of your voices” before launching into

Promised Land. Springsteen is empowering the crowd by

telling them what it is possible for them to achieve,

once his second song is finished he tells them that he

“grew up as a blue-collar kid from a working class home”

which earns raucous cheers from the crowd. Ohio is a

notoriously working class state which many political

commentators predicted could be an advantage to Obama

winning there (Zeleny and Sussman, 2012). By choosing

someone like Springsteen to help endorse him in Ohio,

Obama has allowed for a spokesman of the working class to

speak for him and engage with potential voters in a way

that he cannot. If voters cannot recognise themselves in

a politician, then they certainly can recognise and

aspire to be like Springsteen who has had a similar

upbringing to them and managed to make a success of his

life.

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Springsteen makes a coherent and powerful speech about

why he believes people should vote for Obama. It is

strikingly different to the shouting, and at times

inaccurate, endorsement Meat Loaf offered Romney’s rally

crowd. Springsteen’s speech is so different because he is

experienced at talking in this nature. He understands the

people that he is addressing and engages with them by

humanising Obama. He tells the crowd a story of how Obama

has phoned him after every debate, in the early hours of

the morning, singing down the phone. Springsteen imitates

the way that Obama sings and this draws laughs from the

crowd before then telling them that Obama asked for

Springsteen to write him a campaign song.

Obama’s campaign song is based on his campaign slogan

“forward”. It is somewhat of a jump back to campaign

songs of old, in that it those songs put the candidate’s

“agendas to music by featuring political content that

reflected the candidates’ positions on both national and

international issues” (Larson, 2009: 6). Springsteen’s

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song is certainly not polished, nor is it available in

the form of a purchasable track, but it works well at a

rally because it gives Springsteen a chance to engage

with the crowd. He talks throughout the song and will

sing a line before then prompting the crowd to chant

“forward” back at him. One line in the song is “let’s

vote for the man who got Osama”, reminding the crowd of

one of the highlights of Obama’s first term as president

when a US military operation managed to kill the leader

of Al Qaeda in what was lauded as a huge step forward in

the fight against terrorism (Baker, Cooper and Mazzetti,

2011). Later in the song Springsteen sings, “Romney got

schooled by Obama”, referring to the presidential

candidate debates in which Obama performed better than

his opposition. These lines, buried amongst more joking

comments such as not much rhymes with Obama, are subtle

reminders to the crowd of Obama’s strengths and why

people should be voting for him. This is certainly

something that Obama’s team would want to be heard at a

rally taking place mere hours before the audience would

go to cast their vote.

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Jay-Z was next to the stage and there is a definite feel

of a concert setting rather than a rally in how

anticipation is built waiting for his arrival by playing

Jay-Z talking about the importance of exercising the

right to vote to a hip-hop sounding backing track. While

this is happening, a huge American flag unfurls on the

stage creating a backdrop suitable for a mega star. Jay-Z

starts his set with his song Public Service Announcement and

during the song he asks the crowd “are we ready to move

forward, Ohio?” engaging with both the crowd’s state and

Obama’s campaign slogan. Jay-Z’s next song is slightly

more controversial. He eludes to rap and hip-hop’s

slightly more controversial nature saying that he was

told not to use “colourful language” when being briefed

for the performance showing that despite politics wanting

to interact with music, there will always be jarring

points between the two. Jay-Z tells the crowd that he

hasn’t been given “clearance” to perform this altered

version of one of his best known songs and jokes that

he’ll have to be quick in case the secret service try to

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tackle him from the stage. One of Jay-Z’s most definitive

and popular songs, 99 Problems, has the original chorus

line:

“If you’re having girl problems, I feel bad for you

son. I’ve got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one.”

However, for this occasion Jay-Z alters the lyrics to:

“If you’re having world problems, I feel bad for you

son. I’ve got 99 problems but Mitt ain’t one.”

He sings the changed lyrics once before launching into

the song properly, keeping the changed lyrics throughout.

99 Problems was already a catchy song in that its melody

would stick in one’s mind, however, the changed lyrics

make the song satirical, amusing and headline worthy, once

again placing the Democrats under the ‘cool’ slogan for

their endorsement by Jay-Z as well as ridiculing the

Republicans, making them appear out of touch and

decidedly uncool.

Jay-Z launches straight from 99 Problems into Run this town,

which features pop star Rihanna. Though similar to Meat

Loaf’s use of Lil Jon in that Rihanna is not present at

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the rally but her part is kept in the song, Rihanna is

also a musician endorser of Obama so it feels more

natural that her part has been retained. After this song,

Jay-Z mentions that his next song will be Encore prompting

the crowd to start singing along, showing the relevance

and popularity of Jay-Z as a performer. Jay-Z

incorporates a chant of “four more years” into the song,

before saying it is his “humbled and esteemed pleasure”

to introduce Barack Obama. The way that he introduces

Obama is fitting of a rock star, as is the cheer that the

audience create.

Obama, like Romney, walks down a runway to a stage. The

song that Obama walks out to is U2’s City of blinding lights and

Obama seems to revel in his walk along the run way in a

different way to what Romney did. When he reaches the

podium where he’ll give his speech he gets the crowd to

chant by asking “are you fired up?” to which they reply

“fired up” and then Obama asks “ready to go?” to which

they respond “ready to go” and this carries on for a few

rounds of call and response. The first thing Obama does

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is mention that it is an “incredible honour to have Jay-Z

and Bruce Springsteen on the same bill”. He then goes on

to talk about how he listens to them both on his iPod

saying, “and yes, the president has an iPod” addressing

that it would be easy to have musicians for the sake of

earning some more attention rather than there being a

purpose to having them there. This is taken further when

Obama says that the reason for choosing Jay-Z and

Springsteen is that “they tell the story of what our

country is, what it should be and what it can be”. This

is a thought provoking statement that gives a real

insight into why Obama has asked for these musicians to

represent him. It is not just a matter of having some

entertainment at a rally, but rather a case of choosing

spokespeople who Obama has personal connections to, who

he feels can reach people he can’t and spread their

shared message.

3. 6 Chapter Two Conclusion

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This chapter sought to explore the reasons why musicians

are used in presidential election campaigns by focusing

on their use in an event where the election itself was

potentially at stake. The first section focused on the

changing nature of politics where presidential candidates

need to present themselves in a more packaged and

approachable way in order to appeal to the public. It was

necessary to highlight this before examining the rallies

because where a politician might fail in empathising with

an audience, their musician endorsers could help. For

this to be achieved, however, there needs to have been a

more complex selection process than just allowing any

musician to represent a party or candidate. The Obama

rally was more successful in its use of musicians than

Romney’s because the musicians were convincingly

passionate about their purpose. It was evidently not just

another concert for them because of the impassioned and

articulated ways that the musicians declared their

support for the party. Romney’s musical support, however,

was much less focused. The performances incorporated the

fact that they were campaigning, of course, but it did

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not seem to be the highlight of the event in the way that

Jay-Z and Springsteen made Obama the highlight of theirs.

I think this comes back to my earlier point of Democrats

being more naturally suited to musicians than

Republicans, and it is perhaps a result of this that

Obama seems to have a greater sense of camaraderie with

his musician endorsers, as seen in the way he talks about

them in his speech, than Romney does with his. Obama

seems to see the worth of using musicians to their full

potential at an event like a rally whereas Romney’s use

of musicians seemed to be as more of a time filler than

an important tool that could make a difference.

67


4.1 Conclusion

The aim of this dissertation was to look at how music and

musicians were used in presidential election campaigns.

In order to do this I looked at the way that culture has

changed in terms of both technology and the political

spectrum and found that the two were linked. Web 2.0 and

devices such as smart phones have allowed for a culture

where news is constant and accessed in different ways and

this has filtered into the way that political culture has

adapted to fit into a more digital, celebrity centred

age. In order for presidential candidates to embrace

these changes in their election campaigns music and

musicians were used as an attempt to help humanise as

well as represent politicians by making them more

accessible to audiences across different demographics,

particularly younger ones.

68


The way that Obama and Romney interacted with technology

was reflected in their portrayal online. Obama embraced

the online world and as a result, it embraced him back.

Furthermore, Obama’s online support from musicians on

sites such as Twitter further helped to extend his online

presence. Romney, on the other hand, used technology and

social networking in a more reserved and hesitant way

resulting in less interaction with his desired audiences.

That is not to say that Romney did not have an online

presence, however, as there was much user-generated

content available in the forms of memes and YouTube

videos that targeted the Republican candidate and mocked

him. I think future presidential candidates can learn a

lot from Obama and Romney’s uses of technology and will

hopefully recognise that it is now an essential part of

campaigning that can be a double edged sword even if used

in the ‘correct’ way and potentially fatal to a campaign

if not navigated carefully.

The changing nature of politics has had an interesting

effect on the way that campaigns are run and now politics

69


has emerged, in the press at least, as much more about

the individual candidate rather than their policies

resulting in the adoption of a celebrity like character

to some politicians. The presidential candidate must now

conduct himself as celebrity as well as politician and

musicians were used to boost this persona, especially in

Obama’s case, to prove authenticity and genuine

credibility as a celebrity in his own right. I also

looked at more traditional ways of using musicians in

election campaigns in chapter two and focused on the

candidates’ rallies in Ohio. What was obvious from

looking at these was that there must be a legitimate

reason for appearances from musicians at events such as

rallies for them to work in the most effective way

possible. The musicians must be selected with care and

ideally have some political motivation of their own

alongside the ability to interact and identify with a

crowd in order to have maximum impact. Again, Obama

appeared the victor in this aspect because the musicians

who performed at his rallies gave politically meaningful

performances whereas Romney’s musicians gave performances

70


ranging from the average to comically poor considering

the scale and importance of the rally due to the state it

was being held in.

It would be fascinating to take this work further, and

even in the course of this dissertation, there were many

more avenues that I could have explored such as political

candidates, parties and music genres. It would also be

useful to compare this case study to that of another

country’s election campaigns and their uses of music in

order to attempt to map possible emerging patterns. As a

whole, however, it would seem that more liberal

politicians are going to have greater success at

integrating musicians into their election campaigns due

more to the tendency of musicians generally aligning

themselves with the left of the political spectrum and

separating themselves from the right, rather than any

particularly overt effort on the part of liberal

politicians.

71


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