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How well does music predict your politics?

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Re: How well does music predict your politics?

#41

Post by yoasif_ »

pvnick wrote: post #2

Grooveshark's beluga project ( http://beluga.grooveshark.com ) reveals a lot of the same patterns. Looking up Mormon tabernacle choir, for instance, shows a high listenership of politically active, religious conservatives, while people that listen to system of a down tend to be moderate liberals with less political involvement. Music demographics data is fascinating!

This is far more interesting than the linked article, mostly because it actually shows data for the music that I listen to.

For example, Paul van Dyk, Three Drives, and Ferry Corsten all have "IT Specialist / Programmer" as highly over-represented (wow!).

In addition, Tiësto (had to look up Tiesto) shows that advertising does in fact, work! ... 92% of the listeners on Grooveshark uses Windows Live Spaces.

He was hired by Microsoft to sell Vista to the Dutch market: http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/15/music-tiesto-dc-id...

Good find! :)

Re: How well does music predict your politics?

#42

Post by waterlesscloud »

jere wrote: post #36
waterlesscloud wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those words could only be spoken by someone who doesn't get out much.

Is that right? Here are some recent polls from Alabama/Mississipi in which 52% of Republicans believe Obama is secretly Muslim and 29% believe interracial marriage should be illegal. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/12/news/la-pn-poll-obam... You're suggesting... what? Democrats have equal hatred for non-whites and non-christians??

In that particular case I strongly suspect that if you polled white Democrats in those states you'd get similar answers on the interracial marriage question.

Probably not similar on the "Is Obama secretly a Muslim?" question, but as Democrats they're less likely to believe negative things about their party head.

My point is that there are many, many racist Democrats in the country, and if you don't think so you just haven't gotten around very much.

Re: How well does music predict your politics?

#43

Post by anamax »

jere wrote: post #22
mindcrime wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

both celebrate certain attitudes epitomized by the cowboy persona (strong, independent, hard working, etc.) while simultaneously trying to forget that those pesky intellectuals, liberals, foreigners, and minorities even exist. Meh... as much as I don't care for a lot of what passes for "conservatism" these days, one has to be fair and say that being conservative doesn't preclude you from being an intellectual, a fore…

I agree with you, but there does seem to be a correlation there. And if you disagree, then ask yourself how many Republicans would be vote for a gay, atheist, or Muslim president. Bill Maher put it best: >Let me defend myself. I would never say and I have never said, because it’s not true that Republicans, all Republicans are racists. That would be silly and wrong. But nowadays, if you are racist, you’re probably a R…

> But nowadays, if you are racist, you’re probably a Republican.

For definitions of "racist" that are "interesting" to say the least.

> Bill Maher put it best.

Maher is a tool who makes Limbaugh look smart.

Re: How well does music predict your politics?

#44

Post by waterlesscloud »

gyardley wrote: post #40
jere wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that right? Here are some recent polls from Alabama/Mississipi in which 52% of Republicans believe Obama is secretly Muslim and 29% believe interracial marriage should be illegal. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/12/news/la-pn-poll-obam... You're suggesting... what? Democrats have equal hatred for non-whites and non-christians??

He's probably suggesting that there are many types of bigotry and no one political party has a lock on them. Yes, in America if you're bigoted against blacks, you probably vote Republican. If you're bigoted against whites, you probably vote Democratic. If you're bigoted against Muslims, you probably vote Republican. If you're bigoted against all religious people, well, you probably vote Democratic. It's probably a fu…

The other aspect of this is that a Mississippi Democrat is different from a Massachusetts Democrat.

Re: How well does music predict your politics?

#45

Post by efa »

gyardley wrote: post #38
jbooth wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, Pink Floyd? Maybe it's a case of age outweighing the lyrical content and the overall cultural bent of the music? I'd have accepted the beatles-ish even split, since everyone likes Pink Floyd and the Beatles even though both are very counter-culture. But leaning Republican is just plain weird for the band that made "Us and Them", "Another brick in the wall", "Have a cigar", etc.

I don't know - distrust of and feelings of alienation from elites are pretty common conservative themes. I'm both conservative and a big Pink Floyd fan, and never felt that that was weird. Of course, any band with enough albums is likely to have both conservative and liberal-leaning songs. Even the Beatles - a song like 'Taxman' isn't exactly liberal.

Agree. I think people assume Republican means social conservative values only (thus they relate to country music). But Libertarian types are frequently Republicans. I see Pink Floyd themes being conservative. Conservatives are anti all powerful controlling government (freedom from tyranny).

Re: How well does music predict your politics?

#46

Post by meepmorp »

efa wrote: post #45
gyardley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know - distrust of and feelings of alienation from elites are pretty common conservative themes. I'm both conservative and a big Pink Floyd fan, and never felt that that was weird. Of course, any band with enough albums is likely to have both conservative and liberal-leaning songs. Even the Beatles - a song like 'Taxman' isn't exactly liberal.

Agree. I think people assume Republican means social conservative values only (thus they relate to country music). But Libertarian types are frequently Republicans. I see Pink Floyd themes being conservative. Conservatives are anti all powerful controlling government (freedom from tyranny).

> Conservatives are anti all powerful controlling government (freedom from tyranny).

No. People who support democratic (note the small D) ideals are against an all powerful controlling government and tyranny. Note that this can include anarchists, in addition to those favoring a more traditional states. Neither conservatives nor liberals have shown themselves adverse to using the machinery of the state to give force to their views.

Re: How well does music predict your politics?

#47

Post by mindcrime »

binxbolling wrote: post #32
mindcrime wrote: post #6

Metal fans could save us all from a two-party system. Hmm... I'm a huge metal fan myself, and very much an anarcho-capitalist / libertarian / voluntaryist / $whatever_term_you_prefer. But, to be honest, I haven't really noticed much correlation between a preference for metal, and 3rd party political affiliation, at least among my metal loving friends. If anything, I'd say that metalheads perhaps run towards "politica…

RTFA. Their conclusion was not that metal fans have a preference for 3rd party affiliation.

Not strictly speaking, but if they say:

"I found it neat these non-predictive artists were mainly metal. Perhaps the genre that can finally bring this divided country together or break the lock on the two party system."

then it's a small bit of inference to think that they are suggesting metal fans are more likely to go for something other than the two incumbent parties.

Anyway, I'm generalizing a bit here. It's not always necessary to reply only to the conclusions than the authors of an article explicitly drew.

Re: How well does music predict your politics?

#48

Post by anamax »

anamax wrote: post #43
jere wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but there does seem to be a correlation there. And if you disagree, then ask yourself how many Republicans would be vote for a gay, atheist, or Muslim president. Bill Maher put it best: >Let me defend myself. I would never say and I have never said, because it’s not true that Republicans, all Republicans are racists. That would be silly and wrong. But nowadays, if you are racist, you’re probably a R…

> But nowadays, if you are racist, you’re probably a Republican. For definitions of "racist" that are "interesting" to say the least. > Bill Maher put it best. Maher is a tool who makes Limbaugh look smart.

For example, it was "racist" for McCain to not address the NAACP convention in 2008.

Likewise, it was "racist" for Romney to mention points of disagreement in his NAACP convention speech earlier this week, as proved by their boos. (Any time a white person is bood by a mostly black audience, the speaker is racist. And no, their applause doesn't erase that.)

That said, it would have been "racist" for Romney to only mention points of agreement.

Speaking of boos, if a mostly white audience boos a black speaker, that's because they're "racists".

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