Afrika Bambaataa and NWA playing at the next US president's inauguration ball is a real possibility. If Florida senator Marco Rubio succeeds in securing the Republican nomination and beating Clinton or Sanders come November, the obsessive 2Pac fan will become the most powerful politician in the world.
This was one of the more notable findings of an extensive study (featuring new interviews) last week into the musical affiliations of those running for the US presidency. Conducted by Rolling Stone magazine the survey was as extravagant and contradictory as Donald Trump's hair style.
Bernie Sanders and his love for Hi-NRG disco; Jeb Bush wigging out to Aerosmith; John Kasich pleading with the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame to grant inclusion to Canadian prog-rockers Rush; Hillary Clinton's love for "hypnotic dance anthems"; the Donald as a Neil Young fanatic; and Ben Carson knowing that the baritone saxophone operated as the "lead guitar" in Motown soul. Now that's what I call the best US presidential music album – ever.
You wouldn't want to get in a bar room argument with Marco Rubio over Biggie vs Pac. Rubio knows his Death Row records back catalogue inside out. The favourite album ever for the man who is opposed to gay marriage and is against abortion, including in cases of rape and incest, is 2Pac's All Eyez On Me. His favourite musical era is when "Dre and then Tupac went West Coast". He does add about that troublesome era: "I don't think they should have shot each other".
In terms of what is happening now, Rubio is a big fan of Drake and The Weeknd. Who are both Canadian – but there you go.
Hillary Clinton named her daughter Chelsea after a Joni Mitchell song and learnt how to dance by listening to the sublime pop splendour of The Supremes (who didn't Hillary?). Whereas previously she's always being chronologically correct by name-dropping The Stones, The Beatles, The Doors and The Who for her 2016 campaign and perhaps cognisant of changing voter demographics in the US, she's now playing music by Black and Hispanic artists at her campaign stops.
Clinton has always been about female empowerment so Lady Gaga and Beyoncé are featuring heavily in the sound bites: "I want to be as good a president as Beyoncé is a performer." The Clinton campaign paid a well-known music consultancy to come up with the focus-grouped 13 songs played at her rallies.
Donald Trump makes no mention of 2Pac in his musical favourites but does big up Elton John, Paul McCartney and Aerosmith. The musical lodestar for Trump though is Neil Young. The venerable songwriter is an immigrant to the US from Canada but I'm sure his visa papers are in order. Trump likes to talk up his connection with Young: "He's performed for me at my casinos over the years, I've met him on occasions and he's a terrific guy." So close was the apparent connection between them that Trump began using Young's Rockin' in the Free World as his campaign anthem until Young sent him a "cease and desist" letter, the singer adding the grace note that he was a big Bernie Sanders fan. Trump swiftly turned on Young, calling him a "hypocrite" and alleging that Young once approached him looking for money to invest in the singer's Pono music system.
At a recent rally, as Trump's family dutifully trooped on to the stage, the song playing was The Rolling Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want.
For Jeb Bush it’s all about Skrillex. Not really, but his musical tastes appear to be as out-of-focus and blandly conservative as his nose-diving campaign. Journey and Lynyrd Skynyrd and a liking for country music is as good as it gets here – although if Bush wants to turn it up to 11, he’ll reach for an Aerosmith album.
John Kasich is a complete Dead Head (The Grateful Dead) but the best concert he's ever been to is Roger Waters' The Wall. He has said that he'd hire Pink Floyd to play at his inauguration, perhaps not realising that Pink Floyd and Roger Waters can't be in the same room together. Also a massive Rush fan, he cites "alternative" act such as Pearl Jam and Linkin Park as regular plays. John Kasich also likes Green Day and Bastille and would like it to be known he is concerned about the decline of the album format.
Ben Carson grew up in Detroit so is obviously fluent in Motown. His favourite Motown act is the Four Tops (who had one of the greatest singers who ever lived - Levi Stubbs - in their line up) so this coupled with the fact that Carson is the only politician on the list who can play a musical instrument (he has played cornet and baritone horn in jazz ensembles) means the neurosurgeon wins musically.
In contrast to his woeful polling figures, Carson is excellent on music: he can go from Vivaldi to Roy Clark and bonus points are awarded here for his reference to Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park as "beautiful music". The Moody Blues also get a mention. On a purely musical level, Carson would win the next US president election with a landslide.
Bernie Sanders has actually recorded an album. Back in 1987 he recorded the cassette format only We Shall Overcome release. Side one was Sanders covering folk anthems – This Land Is Your Land, etc – while side two was taken up with Conversation with Bernie Sanders. His atrocious singing voice though is like a tone-deaf alsatian being starved of oxygen.
Sanders favour classical music (which he listens to on his iPad) over folk, rock or pop. However he does have a disco music gene and is the only candidate to genuflect at the sacred magical altar of Abba. He was seen dancing on the Ellen DeGeneres show last year to The Trammps' Disco Inferno ( a sight not for the faint-hearted). Popular musical acts in the US are very much "Feeling the Bern" and during the Iowa caucus last month he joined indie-rockers Vampire Weekend to "sing" on stage with them.
