Print
Email
Share
I try as much as possible to avoid overtly political commentary in this blog, because it’s not usually germane to discussions of music. Sadly, this is primarily because politically oriented music is almost as anachronistic as phrases like “artistic values”. I couldn’t help but comment on a recent National Review post that suggested that Barack Obama’s 75,000 person rally in Oregon was due in large part to The Decemberists opening with a free show. I’m hardly uncritical of Obama and his followers, but doesn’t this claim smacks of tone deaf desperation.
Do the Portland, faux Brit Oregonians really have that level of mass magnetism? This is what happens when your clueless stepdad tries to politicize pop culture in order to denigrate an opponent at all costs. Would the same undercutting claim be made if Toby Keith opened for John McCain? Clearly, the Decemberists were not the draw all the Obama rally and nothing nefarious is going on by giving a free concert before a political rally a tradition as old as driving people to the polls and the far more questionable practice of “walking around money”. God knows, “My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist” is certainly as frenzy-inducing as “We Will Rock You”. But the worst part of the post are the unsubtle McCarthyite gestures suggesting that The Decemberists are a bunch of communist radicals purely based on selected lyrics from “Sixteen Military Lives”. I mean, they make negative gestures about the flag pin in their video. Clearly, The Decemberists are terrorists. Surely, Obama deserved to be smeared for associating with a Molotov-tosssing librarian like Colin Meloy. Next thing you know he’ll be drawing a crowd of a 100,000 by getting the Jesus Lizard to open for him.
