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      in US Politics

      Rockin' in the free world? Inside the rightwing takeover of protest music

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      “Did you know that Born in the USA is actually an anti-Vietnam war anthem?” Since Donald Trump embraced the 1984 Bruce Springsteen song during rallies, the lyrics have prompted so much explanation it now borders on cliche. Yet it’s no less unsettling for it, becoming a prime example of a startlingly widespread trend for the right wing to co-opt music about struggle and progress.President Ronald Reagan made the first attempt to gloss over the context of the song’s ironically upbeat chorus after the release of the Born in the USA album. Reagan name-checked Springsteen during a New Jersey rally in an attempt to connect the musician to a “message of hope” for America. Springsteen’s opposition to its use didn’t affect the fervour for the song from Trump and his supporters. As Barack Obama noted in an episode of his podcast series with Springsteen this month: “It ended up being appropriated as this iconic, patriotic song. Even though that was not necessarily your intention.”Neither has the Clash’s status as leftist punk icons been a sticking point for Boris Johnson, who named the band one of his favourites in 2019; nor has Rage Against the Machine’s socialism and anti-police stance been a problem for anti-mask truthers and Trump diehards, who last year blasted the band’s Killing in the Name at a Trump rally.Neil Young had to weigh in after Trump repeatedly used his anti-America song Rockin’ in the Free World at campaign events. In a since retracted lawsuit, Young said that he couldn’t “in good conscience” allow his music “to be used as a ‘theme song’ for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate”.The latest example comes from anti-lockdown protesters who, positioning themselves as oppressed, have contorted Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It into an anti-mask anthem. While the band’s guitarist Jay Jay French describes what has been called a quintessential American protest song as speaking “to the disenfranchised everywhere”, the band support social distancing, mask-wearing, and vaccination. “The fact that a health crisis solution has been politicised and characterised as a threat to someone’s personal civil rights is just impossible to comprehend,” he says. On their anti-lockdown track, Stand and Deliver, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison went further by using the language of liberation to deliver their message.Kevin Fellezs, associate professor at Columbia University, is researching “freedom musics”, a tradition through which artists and their communities “articulate their aspirations for individual or collective liberation”. Stand and Deliver twists the tradition, he says, blurring concepts of freedom and slavery with lyrics such as, “Do you wanna wear these chains / Until you’re lying in the grave?” He accuses Morrison and Clapton of “pursuing self-interest at the expense of a larger social good or need”.Elliott H Powell, associate professor at the University of Minnesota, says that this is especially troubling given pop music’s use by marginalised artists “to critique systems of domination and subordination … and to imagine life outside of these systems”, citing Public Enemy’s Fight the Power and Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit. By hijacking these forms and their languages, says Powell, the right wing dismisses and diminishes the social movements that use them. “It attempts to say that the anti-mask and anti-lockdown movement is no different from other freedom struggles,” he says. “It’s obviously a false equivalence when we follow the flows of power.”Linguistic and thematic appropriation is part of popular music history. “Long ago, Americans figured out ways to enjoy Black music while also being racist, while also being white supremacist,” says Jack Hamilton, a professor at University of Virginia. “Being able to separate out these things is an unfortunate feature of American popular music audiences – probably popular music audiences everywhere.”It’s been that way for centuries, according to Noriko Manabe of Temple University, who says that, in 17th-century England, folk songs were reinterpreted and rewritten by opposing social and political groups. Similarly, in 18th-century America, songs that were once used by loyalist or anti-loyalist groups in England were adapted by warring federalist and republican factions. Manabe says that popular music has always been an effective organising and emotion-rousing tool.She recently studied the sounds made during the storming of the US Capitol, where attackers chanted, “No Trump, no peace”, an inversion of Black Lives Matter’s “No justice, no peace”. “That is such an abomination of the original ideological framework that it makes me extremely mad,” says Manabe.Beyond the emotional triggers, Hamilton says the co-opting is part of an effort to link conservatism to rebellion and the idea that to be conservative is to be rebellious. This crops up in younger conservatives and Trump supporters, and even more visibly in anti-mask and anti-lockdown movements. “The anti-mask movement, at least on its face, is about, ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’” says Hamilton. “You can find that all over popular music. There’s so much pop music about freedom and being able to do what you want.”The journalist Charles Bramesco, who has analysed hate groups’ attempts to use work by the likes of Depeche Mode and Johnny Cash, echoes Hamilton’s assessment. “The persecution complexes of far-right groups compel them to gravitate toward language about oppression and rising up,” he says. “A lot of the music that touches on those themes happens to be made from a perspective completely alien to their own.”Benjamin Teitelbaum, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Colorado who studies music in far-right nationalist and white supremacist movements, says the far right’s use of music has deep roots. “The biggest stars in the [far-right] scene, the biggest financial initiatives, the largest gatherings, the ways that people identified themselves, all of those things had to do with music throughout the 1980s and 90s in particular,” he says. “Music often plays an outsize role for political causes that don’t have a lot of parliamentary, democratic or revolutionary options for themselves.” Teitelbaum cites the British National Party’s record label, Great White Records, as a vehicle for building power in lieu of institutional acceptance: “If you’re not going to win at the ballot box, you can still gain victory through symbolic expression like music.”In the 80s and 90s, these expressions were explicitly nationalist and fascist, with acts such as punk band Skrewdriver, Norway’s Black Circle bands, and the international music festival Rock Against Communism providing a musical staging ground for skinhead white nationalism and neo-Nazism. But in the 2000s, these movements began a significant rebrand, branching into rap (Germany’s Dissziplin), reggae (Nordic Youth in Sweden), singer-songwriter and pop forms (such as Swedish singer Saga). Teitelbaum says their songwriting message was: “We just love ourselves, we just want to be ourselves, I love our people so much and we’re dying, someone help us.”This shift, he says, dilutes the power and clarity of music that legitimately uses themes of struggle. “We know the chorus of Born in the USA, but we kind of hum through the rest of it.” Even Killing in the Name, written by strident leftwingers, isn’t immune: “If it keeps occurring in these [rightwing] settings and for these purposes, it will acquire those meanings.”Teitelbaum, who recently researched the growing far-right youth movement in the US, says that this dynamic demands more than ridicule. “We can be struck by the idiocy of it, but we should also be struck by the traces of intelligibility that are floating around there,” he says. “Calling them stupid isn’t gonna do anything. This act of appropriation is not taking place in a vacuum.”As Twisted Sister’s French says, “all any artist can really do is to publicly shame the user into stopping the use”. But artist rebukes and social media parody can only do so much to staunch the appropriation – the far right’s acceleration of this tactic could demand a more comprehensive, proactive approach. Fellezs says better music education could be necessary. “I don’t mean to teach children ‘good music’ so they won’t want to listen to ‘bad music,’” he says. “What we can do is educate, empower and encourage people to listen with a critical ear.”Powell agrees. “If we remain committed to following and critiquing the flows of power in how they manifest and operate in these songs, then the power of such music will not be lost.” So let’s remember Born in the USA for what it is: a portrait of a racist America focused on foreign wars while its economy flounders. Sound familiar? More

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      in US Politics

      'Lynching was treated as a celebratory event': Adrian Younge on the history of US racism

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      “I’m sacrificing myself to deliver a message,” says the composer, multi-instrumentalist and now podcast-maker Adrian Younge. “We aren’t aware enough of black history, nor of the integral role black people have played in building America. There is an educational sterilisation going on and it’s my duty to make people understand that history of racism – something America has pioneered.”With more than 400 years to cover since US slavery began, Younge’s project to educate the public is a vast and complex one. Yet, speaking on a video call surrounded by analogue recording equipment in his LA studio, it is a story Younge believes he has spent his life and career building up to. “This is my What’s Going On project, my record talking about why we are in the place that we are in,” he says. “It’s as if James Baldwin hooked up with Marvin Gaye to make a record produced by David Axelrod. It’s psychedelic soul but it is very professorial at the same time. There’s so many layers to it.”Indeed, there are. The resulting project comprises a 26-track album, written, played and recorded entirely by Younge, entitled The American Negro, a four-part podcast – Invisible Blackness – hosted by Younge – and a short film, again written and directed by Younge himself.Racism is a learned behaviour, one America developed through building its nation on the backs of slave labourSuch auteurship could seem somewhat egotistical but Younge – a 42-year-old musician who has made his name in collaboration with the likes of Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Kendrick Lamar – sees it as necessary. “Pre-Covid, I was travelling the world performing and I was shocked at how little people understood about racism and its history,” he says. “Racism is a learned behaviour and one America developed through building its nation on the backs of slave labour and those economic gains. America is a slavocracy: it is a nation founded on bigotry, and those principles continue today. People might think racism no longer exists because there is no longer a slave system, but they don’t realise the laws that enabled the slave system still put us in a position where we have to jump over insurmountable handicaps to just become equal.”It is an incendiary argument and one that has found an increasing foothold in historical scholarship. The writer Edward E Baptist recently argued that the expansion of slavery during the first decades of American independence was foundational in enabling the country’s modernisation, while film-makers such as Ava DuVernay have convincingly plotted the continual subjugation of African Americans through the legal and penal system.While Younge’s album puts luscious orchestral arrangements and spoken-word interludes to use in creatively unfurling the development of structural racism in the US, it is through the podcast Invisible Blackness that he most comprehensively lays out his thesis. With guests including Public Enemy’s Chuck D, the trumpeter Keyon Harrold – whose son was recently in the headlines after being falsely accused of stealing an iPhone – and Digable Planets rapper Ladybug Mecca, Younge explores how his guests’ creation of socially conscious hip-hop influenced his own understanding of inequality. He also uses his previous career as a professor of law to authoritatively detail the origins of this American “slavocracy”.“I use the phrase of the show’s title to illustrate that we all have invisible blackness, this sense of ‘otherness’ inside us, because we are all descended from the first human being in Africa,” Younge says. “It all means that we are radically equal. And I have black radicals on the podcast, like Chuck D, to find out what he had to go through to educate others about this. We’re all looking at the past to understand what’s happening now, to inform people so they can ultimately make their own opinions with all the knowledge at their disposal.”Lynching was a form of bigotry porn: it is the galvanising of a group by emotion, rather than thoughtIt is a measured approach, yet not one without moments of visceral, emotional charge. Most strikingly, the cover art for The American Negro album is a black-and-white image of Younge being lynched, in the fashion of a “lynching postcard”. “Lynching was a form of bigotry porn: it is the galvanising of a group by emotion, rather than thought, as it’s easier to act without thinking,” he says. “Lynching was a celebratory event, one where people would pay to take ‘souvenirs’ like a thumb or an eyeball and they would then send each other postcards to say: ‘I was here’. So when you look at the album cover, which represents one of these postcards, I want to highlight how we were seen as the symbols of evil in America. And viewing the image now, we symbolise the American problem of racism. I want people to have a personal experience when they see it; I want them to see me as any other person of colour that can be killed with no judicial reprisal. I want people to see that I am real and I want them to see themselves in me.”It is a powerful image, one that calls up the horrors of history while referencing its grim modern iteration: filmed police brutality against people of colour. In fact, the May 2020 police killing of Minnesotan George Floyd occurred while Younge was at the beginning of recording his album. “George Floyd’s death didn’t affect the progression of the record at all and that’s what’s sad, right?” Younge says. “It’s the same thing; before that you had Eric Garner and before that, you had so many black people dying without judicial reprisal. That is what makes the world complacent towards the treatment of black people, because it’s so commonplace.”However, the global Black Lives Matter protests sparked by Floyd’s death did augur something different. “Part of me is happy that Trump was president because, while he has inspired more bigots, his lack of reaction to these police killings and white supremacy has also launched the greatest global protest that we’ve seen regarding race. He’s removed complacency,” says Younge. “I have two daughters and I see how young people are so much more woke than they were before now. There’s 12-year-olds on TikTok explaining racism because of him.”Despite the centuries of ingrained inequality laid out in Younge’s project, is it still possible to hope for a future change? “We’re in a better place now than we have been for decades,” he says. “America has been forced to acknowledge there is a problem but there is a deferred commitment to solving it. Our governments have the power to make those changes and so they need to make it happen – and soon.”Until then, Younge is keeping occupied. “Right now, I am the busiest I’ve ever been in my life,” he says, “but I’m doing something good and so it feels good. I’m giving so much of myself because this is an ongoing fight. This project is something that people could look back on 50 years from now and still have more to say.”The podcast Invisible Blackness is available now on Amazon Music. The American Negro by Adrian Younge is out on 26 February. More

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      in US Politics

      Jon Bon Jovi on wealth, love and his ugly tussle with Trump: 'It was seriously scarring'

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      Jon Bon Jovi is singing Livin’ on a Prayer to me. No, this is not another crazy lockdown dream; it is actually happening.“Tommy used to work on the docks …” he begins, strumming a guitar he produces out of nowhere, his still impressive bouffant (“I’m the only man in my field brave enough to let it go grey!”) bouncing in time to the music.I later look up how much it would cost to hire Bon Jovi for a private party. “More than $1m” is the best estimate. All I did was ask if he was tired of being asked about his 1986 megahit. The answer, apparently, is no.“Union’s been on strike, he’s down on his luck …” he continues.Going from the zero of lockdown to the zillion miles an hour of a Bon Jovi private performance is a helluva ride and I tell him I might pass out. He laughs the laugh of a man who is neither unaccustomed nor averse to female adoration.“That song, God bless it. But my God, who knew? Not us, I can assure you. It was created on a day when none of us had any ideas, we just had a conversation and it came out of that. I’m sure happy my name’s on it!” Bon Jovi grins.So he didn’t know it was a hit when he wrote it?“Not at all. I remember walking out of the room with Richie [Sambora, his band’s second most famous but now former member] and I said: ‘Eh, it’s OK. Maybe we should just put it on a movie soundtrack.’ Richie looked at me and said: ‘You’re an idiot – it’s really good.’ I said: ‘I just don’t know where it’s going.’ But it didn’t have that boom boom boom bassline yet, so it sounded more like the Clash.”Did it buy him a house?Bon Jovi looks at me as if I had asked about the woods-based habits of bears.“It bought a lot of people houses,” he says.Bon Jovi, 58, is talking to me on Zoom from his house in New Jersey. “I am the crown prince of New Jersey,” he declares, which is probably true – he named one of his biggest-selling albums after the state and has stayed firmly loyal to his home turf. (Although I think we both know that if Bon Jovi is the prince of New Jersey, its king is Bruce Springsteen.) From the tiny amount I can see, his house looks lovely – wood-panelled walls and not over-flashy. “My life is much more normal than one would imagine,” says the sixth wealthiest rock star in the world, sandwiched on that list between Sting and Elton John. “There are no platinum records hanging anywhere in my house. The trappings of rock stardom were never a part of my home.” He and his wife of 31 years, Dorothea, have four kids: Stephanie, 27, Jesse, 25, Jacob, 18 and Romeo, 16, and for a long time, he says, “my younger kids weren’t quite sure what I do”.We are talking today because the latest single, Story of Love, from his album 2020, is about to be released in the UK. Anyone whose image of Bon Jovi is still locked in the Livin’ on a Prayer era – the big guitars, the bigger hair – will be somewhat taken aback by 2020. It is a thoughtful look at the past year, addressing gun control (Lower the Flag), the coronavirus crisis (Do What You Can) and the Black Lives Matter movement (the disarmingly beautiful American Reckoning). Perhaps you are thinking that you don’t especially need Jon Bon Jovi’s thoughts on BLM, but reason not the need: as he has done throughout his near 40-year career, he offers solid music and heartfelt lyrics, and, really, hats off to the man for engaging with the moment because Lord knows he doesn’t need to do anything at all any more. When lockdown hit, instead of running off to a house on the beach, Bon Jovi washed dishes every day in JBJ Soul Kitchen, one of the two community kitchens he set up near his home, where meals are provided through donations or volunteering. As celebrity efforts go, that probably beats posting a video of yourself singing Imagine.But just singing about the human cost of the US’s gun laws will count to many as taking a side. Does he worry about alienating any of his fans? “There are men on my stage who see things differently, but I don’t let our differences come between us. I never wanted to become a captive to the stage. How I live my life’s up to me,” he says.When we first speak, Bon Jovi is 48 hours from performing in a televised celebration for Joe Biden’s inauguration. This is his second inaugural event, after singing for Obama in 2009. Bon Jovi first started palling around with politicians when “a governor by the name of Bill Clinton” contacted him in the early 90s, and he has been actively involved since. “If Al [Gore] had got in I’d have been secretary for entertainment,” he jokes. In 2015 he allowed the Republican and then New Jersey governor Chris Christie to use his music in his presidential campaign. Springsteen has repeatedly rebuffed requests from Christie, a superfan, to play at his events. Does he disapprove of Springsteen’s refusal to reach across the aisle?“I don’t know how Bruce has treated Chris, so I can’t comment on that. But I would be a hypocrite if I told you I write songs that claim to be a witness to history, and then don’t listen [to the other side],” he says.Would he let Donald Trump use his music?He recoils as if physically attacked. “No! No no no! On every issue we wholeheartedly disagree, from how he handled the Covid crisis to immigration to the Paris accord – everything! No! No!”Bon Jovi and Trump have an extremely weird history. Back in 2014, the singer, along with some Canadian investors, tried to buy the NFL team the Buffalo Bills, outbidding Trump. But there was suddenly strong anti-Bon Jovi feeling in Buffalo, NY, with “Bon Jovi-free” zones and negative graffiti, stemming from the rumour that he and his partners would move the team out of the city. Bon Jovi fiercely denied that, but the Bills ultimately went to a third bidder and that was the end of that – until three years ago, when it emerged, inevitably, that the anti-Bon Jovi campaign had been started by Michael Caputo, a political strategist, who had been hired by Trump.“I was really shocked at the depths [Trump] went to. He wasn’t even qualified to buy the team, because you have to submit your tax returns, and he never filed the paperwork. Instead, he did this dark shadow assassination thing, hoping to buy the team at a bargain basement price. But I just couldn’t understand how this misinformation was being put out there. It was seriously scarring,” Bon Jovi says, eyes wide.After Trump failed to get the team, he stomped off and ran for president. Maybe you should have just given him the team, I say.“Yeah, for the sake of the world, he definitely should have got the team. Oh well,” he chuckles.Caputo later worked for Trump when he was president and was questioned as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. It was reported last September that Caputo had orchestrated a pressure campaign for official reports into the Covid crisis to be altered to be more flattering to Trump.“I guess we lived a page of Trump’s playbook in Buffalo,” says Bon Jovi.How did it feel to see his nemesis become president only two years after the battle in Buffalo?He hesitates. “Well, like all Americans, I have to support the office of the president – look how political I’m sounding! I’m trying to stop myself from bullshitting. The truth is, I was really disappointed.”Often in interviews Bon Jovi can sound a little monotone and bored, talking about the same things he has been talking about for decades. But today he is strikingly engaged and I ask if that’s because we’re mainly talking about politics rather than music.“Ha! Well, everyone’s an armchair quarterback when talking about politics,” he says.So he’s not thinking of pivoting to politics, spending his days arguing with Republicans such as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell?“Or Chuck Schumer,” he adds, naming the Democrat leader in the Senate for balance. “It’s a shit existence – selling yourself and your soul. Hell no.”John Bongiovi Jr was born and raised in New Jersey, the son of two former marines. He started making music as a kid and wrote Runaway, which would be his first hit, when he was 19. By 21 he had a record deal and a band, of which he was the name, the face and the boss (“More like a benevolent dictator,” he insists). Initially they were marketed as a hard rock band. They certainly looked the part – big hair, tight trousers – but Bon Jovi had a different plan.“I said: ‘I want a tour with the Cars and Bryan Adams and all these pop groups,’ and my manager said: ‘No. You’re going to learn how to play with Judas Priest and Kiss and the Scorpions. Those audiences are loyal; pop audiences are fickle,’” he says. So they were packed off to open for Judas Priest, “a heavy metal band I’d never listened to,” Bon Jovi says. They won over audiences but he must have cut an unusual figure backstage: unlike pretty much everyone else on the 1980s hard rock scene, Bon Jovi never suffered from substance abuse issues. This has obviously worked in his favour: even aside from his unusual, maybe even unique career and marital stability, Bon Jovi at 58 looks like a man who spent his youth on yoga retreats as opposed to hanging out with Aerosmith. But how did he resist when he was so young?“To be honest with you, I didn’t have the capacity to handle drugs. I didn’t find joy in it, and I didn’t need to bury myself emotionally, so what was the purpose?”Was that because he had a reasonably stable childhood?“Mine was as fucked up as anyone else’s, but not enough to start using drugs. I saw a lot of friends die or there was havoc in their personal lives, but I just didn’t have the need or desire,” he says.When the band made their third album, Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi was “so over” being marketed as something he wasn’t that he took back control and worked on telling stories. The music was still rock, but the lyrics were about Tommy and the docks. The public loved it, and Slippery When Wet sold gazillions, its singles You Give Love a Bad Name, Wanted Dead or Alive, Never Say Goodbye and, of course, Livin’ on a Prayer becoming the inescapable soundtrack of the mid-80s. This was followed by New Jersey (Bad Medicine, I’ll Be There for You, Lay Your Hands on Me), and then the shift to the 90s, when Bon Jovi cut his hair and softened the rock a little (Keep the Faith, These Days) and became increasingly known for his ballads (In These Arms, Always). He sold more than 100m albums, at which point he moved into acting, which he was unexpectedly good at, in Moonlight and Valentino (hunky painter), Ally McBeal (hunky plumber) and Sex and the City (hunky photographer). Did he mind being the rent-a-hunk?“Hell no – I never went to the Shakespeare Company!” he laughs. “Nobody had been able to do both [music and acting]: Madonna, Sting, Phil Collins – you tried and failed. I was so anxious to get work I said: ‘I will do the small role, the hunk, just to get enough of a résumé.’”Yet he hardly needed the money. He talks about wanting to learn “humility” and (of course) “loving the craft”, all of which sounds like a euphemism for just needing a change. Producers told him that if he quit making music they would give him bigger parts but Hollywood’s appeal had already waned.“I got the house in Malibu, saw the guys who are looking over your shoulder to see if they should go talk to someone else. That whole lifestyle was so vapid to me. I couldn’t wait to get away from it,” he says.Critics sneer that Bon Jovi – the band and the man – have become too corporate, too cheesy. This isn’t exactly wrong, but it’s missing the point about why Bon Jovi – the man – is such an enduring phenomenon. He has always been a control freak, over himself and his band, as he admitted in his 2000 hit It’s My Life, and he knows what’s needed for his band to survive. His very un-rockstar-like stability has helped. He married his high school sweetheart, and has been with her more than 40 years. “She sat down next to me in history class, and that was it,” he says. His bandmates Tico Torres and David Bryan have also been with him since the beginning. Disruptions to plans upset him inordinately: he says the Buffalo debacle took him five years to get over. The departure of Sambora in 2013 upset him so much that he said he was plunged into “a dark place” for three years. Are he and Sambora in touch now?“No. He chose to do what he did, but my heartbreak is I personally loved having him in the band – I loved my band. But there was not a chance in the world that we would discontinue because of his inability to go on,” he says, the sensitivity still audible.At Bon Jovi’s suggestion, we talk again two days later after the inauguration. To many people’s surprise, instead of relying on the band’s back catalogue, he performed the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun. “I never felt like I needed to sing a song more. It was cathartic,” he says. Initially I missed the usual Bon Jovi bombast, but as the sun rose behind him as he sang, there was no denying that the man knows what works in the moment. But the recording of my private performance of Livin’ on a Prayer? That will last for ever.Bon Jovi’s album 2020 is out now. The new single, Story of Love, will be released on Friday 29 January. Visit bonjovi.com. More

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      in Elections

      Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez Led a Musically Earnest Inauguration

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential InaugurationHighlightsPhotos From the DayBiden’s SpeechWho Attended?Biden’s Long RoadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookAt Biden’s Inaugural Events, the Music Was Earnestly ReassuringArtists including Bruce Springsteen, Demi Lovato and John Legend tried to bring together an America that couldn’t gather in person, and irony and bombast were banished.At the swearing-in, Lady Gaga sang a “Star-Spangled Banner” that hinted at Kate Smith but made its way into gospel-R&B.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 21, 2021Updated 1:35 p.m. ETThroughout President Biden’s inauguration, music sent every possible signal of unabashed earnestness. Irony was banished; so were arrogance, bombast, triumphalism and confrontation. Echoing the Biden campaign, and tightly coordinated with the speeches and imagery of his first day in office, the music insisted on unity after division, hope after pain.On Wednesday morning, President Trump had jetted away, in a final burst of self-glorification, to the Village People’s booming “Y.M.C.A.” and to Frank Sinatra’s boastful “My Way.” By contrast, Mr. Biden’s prime-time “Celebrating America” broadcast on Wednesday night promised humility and a determined inclusiveness, interspersing tributes to everyday Americans — nurses, teachers, cooks, delivery drivers — with songs.It opened with Bruce Springsteen, alone with a guitar at the Lincoln Memorial, singing about migration, mutual aid and welcome in “Land of Hope and Dreams.” It was a reprise of a song by Mr. Springsteen, a career-long voice of workers’ dignity and a steady supporter of Democratic candidates, that played at President Obama’s farewell address.Mr. Biden’s events presented music as balm and consolation, as a peace offering and a promise of community, even as the pandemic — along with security concerns after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — made a public gathering impossible. At “Celebrating America,” he and his vice president, Kamala Harris, spoke briefly from inside the Lincoln Memorial, where Mr. Biden said their inauguration was “not about us, but about you.”Tyler Hubbard, left, of Florida Georgia Line performing “Undivided” with Tim McGraw on the “Celebrating America” special.Credit…Biden Inaugural Committee, via ReutersEarlier that day at the swearing-in ceremony, Lady Gaga wore a voluminous red dress, a navy jacket and large brooch with a dove holding an olive branch as she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” starting it with a foursquare declamation and grand vibrato hinting at Kate Smith but making her way toward gospel-R&B melismas before she was done. Jennifer Lopez, wearing suffragist white, crescendoed from a soft-rock “This Land Is Your Land” to a fervent “America the Beautiful,” shouting part of the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish and slipping in a phrase from her own “Let’s Get Loud.”The afternoon’s “virtual inaugural parade” strove to recapture the endearing roll call at the Democratic convention. It offered quick glimpses of musical, military and athletic groups from all of the states, along with rhythmic delights from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Andra Day sang “Rise Up” on a rooftop overlooking a Black Lives Matter mural in Hollywood, accompanying a skating routine by the young viral-video star Kaitlyn Saunders on Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., and the New Radicals played their one hit from 1998, “You Get What You Give” — a favorite of the president’s son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015. The show’s giddy finale was a deftly edited, crowdsourced, TikTok-style montage of hundreds of people flaunting their moves to Martha and the Vandellas’ Motown classic “Dancing in the Street.”During the prime-time “Celebrating America,” another onscreen contingent, predominantly health care workers, joined Demi Lovato as she belted Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day”; a time-stamped cutaway showed the Biden family watching and dancing along, live, at the White House. It was as close as the public could gather in pandemic America.“Celebrating America” included live but physically isolated performances from a small stage by the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln’s statue gazed down the stairs at Mr. Springsteen, John Legend, Katy Perry and the event’s host, Tom Hanks. Other performances, largely prerecorded, came from remote locations.Katy Perry’s “Firework,” and real-life fireworks over Washington, provided the finale.Credit…Biden Inauguaral Committee, via Associated PressThe songs and titles weren’t subtle. From Nashville, Tyler Hubbard (a member of Florida Georgia Line) and Tim McGraw sang “Undivided,” which insists, “I’m tired of looking left or right/So I’m just looking up.” Jon Bon Jovi scratchily sang the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” with a band on a pier in Miami. Justin Timberlake and Ant Clemons predicted “Better Days” with a band inside the Stax Museum in Memphis; then they joined a gospel choir singing on the street with a bluesy train whistle cutting through — a glimpse of a particular American locality.Dozens of Broadway singers — including Chita Rivera, Laura Benanti, Vanessa Williams, Anthony Rapp, Betty Buckley, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Audra McDonald and Rosie Perez — contributed home-recorded vocals to a virtual medley of “Seasons of Love” (from “Rent”) and “Let the Sunshine In” (from “Hair”). John Legend revived Nina Simone’s arrangement of “Feeling Good,” declaring, “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day.” And for the finale, Katy Perry sang her positive-thinking pep talk, “Firework,” before fireworks lit up the Washington skies.During the inaugural events, there were multiple renditions of “Amazing Grace,” the English hymn that became a Black spiritual in the United States. It’s a song about finding redemption and salvation; it’s also a staple at funerals. Garth Brooks sang it at Mr. Biden’s swearing-in, inviting home audiences to sing along. The cellist Yo-Yo Ma played it (in a solo medley of hymns with “Goin’ Home” and “Simple Gifts”) on “Celebrating America.” And Lori Marie Key, a nurse from Michigan who sang the song at a hospital in a popular online video, sang it again devoutly and exultantly on Tuesday at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, in a ceremony recognizing the 400,000 U.S. deaths from Covid-19.The newest and sultriest songs on the Biden inaugural stages weren’t sung in English. DJ Cassidy, who had performed at both of Mr. Obama’s inaugurations, brought his “Pass the Mic” video format to both the virtual parade and “Celebrating America,” presenting performers singing along to their recorded hits. During the virtual parade, he had members of Earth, Wind & Fire singing and playing “Sing a Song,” and Kathy Sledge of Sister Sledge, along with the songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers and three remote choirs, performing “We Are Family” — declarations of solidarity.Later, in prime time, he was joined by Puerto Rican hitmakers. Ozuna sang “Taki Taki”; Luis Fonsi delivered his global smash “Despacito.” Both songs are cheerful, amorous flirtations — lighthearted exceptions to all the sober declarations of purpose. But for the most part, the Biden inaugurals were soothingly wholesome, unhip and affirmative — family entertainment hoping to reunite a fractious American family.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The star-packed inauguration special: a dull yet competent plea for unity

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      It goes without saying that Wednesday’s smooth, benignly star-studded inauguration for Joe Biden was a startling change of pace for Washington – the stark, horrifying images of teargas and Maga rioters storming the nation’s Capitol two weeks ago replaced with masked celebrities, odes to American diversity, and earnest, if likely unreciprocated, calls for healing. Capping this secure (thanks to nearly 25,000 national guardsmen), surprisingly smooth event was the 90-minute celebrity extravaganza known as Celebrating America, a collection of musical performances, tributes to America’s essential workers, and nods to better days ahead that played like a technically competent, mostly seamless Zoom telethon for unity.The special benefitted from perhaps the perfect choice as host: Tom Hanks, the beloved everyman actor and one of the few cultural figures on whom most Americans can agree (and also the celebrity whose coronavirus diagnosis on 11 March 2020 was, for many, the moment the direness of the pandemic really sank in). In front of the Lincoln Memorial, the actor most associated with bone-deep decency and ordinary heroism held together a staccato and still-surreal pandemic mix of socially distanced live footage and desktop webcam aesthetics.[embedded content]The evening was ostensibly, in title and structure, intended to honor such Hanksian heroism on the national stage; the zippy 90 minutes was delineated by category of American hero – those who, as title cards spelled out, “feed us” (food pantry workers, farmers), care for us (nurses and medical professionals), teach us (teachers), supply us (delivery workers), among others – represented by single private citizens from around the country.Ordinary heroism quickly bowed to celebrity culture, however, as each hero introduced musical performances, some live and some pre-taped, that cut across generation and genre: Bruce Springsteen, a cringeworthy rendition of Here Comes the Sun by Bon Jovi in Miami, the Foo Fighters coming for your throat with hope for the future, Justin Timberlake doing his Memphis thing with Better alongside Ant Clemons, Katy Perry closing the evening with Firework to some admittedly impressive fireworks over DC. The more successful performances leaned into the heady emotions of the day: anticipation (John Legend’s beautiful take on Feelin’ Good), grief (Yolanda Adams’s performance of Hallelujah, soundtracking a recap of nationwide memorials to the 400,000 Americans now lost to the coronavirus), joyful silliness (Broadway singers hamming it up in a virtual collaboration with the energy of your cousin jumping into the Zoom call two mimosas deep).[embedded content]Still, the cumulative effect of several bland to outright cringingly hollow performances (specifically, Tim McGraw and Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard’s duet on the colorblind country dud Undivided) gave the evening the feel of a come-down from a previous high. Celebrity tributes to American resilience from Eva Longoria and Lin-Manuel Miranda, brief addresses from Biden and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, that hit all the requisite notes, and an almost endearingly awkward riff on peaceful transfers of power from Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama (standing 6ft apart) peppered the evening with gestures of lost stability and hope. But Celebrating America felt less like a party than a denouement from the day’s earlier celebrations, especially the youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman’s unassailable performance – a parade of good intentions back to the ordinariness of performing American optimism, albeit with social distancing protocols and celebrity webcams.But if I come across as a grouch about this show, it’s only because I’m thrilled to have a bar for national celebrations and observance of presidential power that is not below the ground. After four years of a presidency that ignored basic science, elevated white supremacy and plunged the turbo-charged news cycle to ridiculous depths of stupidity, to suffer blandness feels like a blessing. To begrudge a little corniness, celebrity, or a slightly awkward performance? A luxury. The stakes in Celebrating America felt soothingly low, at worst annoying, sometimes silly, never sinister – not perfect, but beyond welcome. More

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      The inauguration music: Biden trumps Trump with singers you actually know

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      Whoever was in charge of booking the talent for Joe Biden’s inauguration clearly had an easier task than their counterpart in 2017. Donald Trump’s transition team promised the world a performance by Elton John. Instead, performers at various inauguration events included Tony Orlando, of Knock Three Times and Tie a Yellow Ribbon fame; a fading post-grunge band called 3 Doors Down; country singer Toby Keith; and a woman who came second on America’s Got Talent. Elton John, it transpired, hadn’t confirmed and evidently had no intention of playing. Here was a lesson for unscrupulous gig promoters everywhere about announcing an act before they sign up.
      In fairness, they managed to grub up one actual musical legend – Sam Moore, one half of 60s soul duo Sam & Dave, who performed at a pre-inauguration event called Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration. But the swearing-in ceremony itself featured only a choir and military band – a climbdown from Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, who had Aretha Franklin sing at his 2009 ceremony followed by Beyoncé in 2013. An excruciating nadir was reached when a Bruce Springsteen tribute act called the B Street Band withdrew from an inauguration eve gig. When the tribute bands start telling you to do one, you’re in trouble.
      Under the circumstances, almost anything would have been an improvement, but Biden’s team proved capable of drawing in some major stars: the Celebrating America TV special that followed the inauguration was hosted by Tom Hanks and featured Justin Timberlake, Foo Fighters, Demi Lovato, Jon Bon Jovi, John Legend and the real Bruce Springsteen.
      At the inauguration itself, Lady Gaga sang the national anthem wearing an enormous red skirt and something you would have described as a brooch in the shape of a dove were it not the size of her head; by her standards at least, she’d dressed down for the occasion. She belted out The Star-Spangled Banner in potent Broadway style, before Jennifer Lopez showed up to perform a medley of America the Beautiful and This Land Is Your Land. More

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      Rapper Lil Wayne in line for last-day pardon from Donald Trump

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      The rapper Lil Wayne was among those reportedly expected to receive a pardon or clemency from Donald Trump on his last full day in office on Tuesday.Sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters suggested that neither the president himself, nor Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, or former aide Steve Bannon would be on the list, which may number up to 100. Neither would members of Trump’s family get pre-emptive pardons, reports suggested.While the legality of a presidential self-pardon remains untested, aides have cautioned Trump that pardoning himself and members of his family may imply guilt that becomes a liability in future state or civil lawsuits.It has also been suggested that a self-pardon could antagonise some Republican senators who will be voting during the second impeachment trial, expected later this month.Lil Wayne pleaded guilty last month to possessing a loaded, gold-plated handgun when his chartered jet landed in Miami in December 2019. He faces up to 10 years in prison at a 28 January hearing in Miami.The rapper appeared to support Trump during last year’s presidential campaign when he tweeted a photo of himself with the president and said he backed Trump’s criminal justice reform programme and economic plan for African Americans.On Tuesday morning, the New York Times reported that the list of new pardons or acts of clememcy “includes the names of people who have been serving life sentences for drug or fraud charges and who for years have been seeking clemency”.The paper said the White House was keen to blunt criticism for Trump’s handing of pardons to allies and cronies, reporting: “Tuesday’s group includes non-violent offenders whose names have been percolating for years among advocates who believe their punishments never fit their crimes and whose cases underscore the broken nature of the country’s criminal justice system.”The Times also reported that the list of pardons and commutations was expected to include the former New York assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, 76, who was convicted of corruption charges in 2015. After a lengthy legal process, Silver was sentenced in July 2020 to six-and-a-half years in prison and a $1m fine. He is held in the federal prison at Otisville, New York.Also said to be under consideration for a pardon was Sholam Weiss. Weiss was sentenced to 835 years in prison in 2000 for crimes including racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering. It is frequently described as the longest sentence imposed in the US for a “white collar” crime.Bannon, 66, who has pleaded not guilty to charges that he defrauded donors to “We Build the Wall”, an online fundraising campaign that raised $25m, was not expected to be on the list. Neither was Giuliani.It has been reported Giuliani has fallen out with the president over unpaid legal fees, and the former New York mayor has recused himself from defending Trump in his Senate impeachment trial, since Giuliani was also involved in the rally on 6 January that preceded a pro-Trump mob ransacking the US Capitol.He notoriously told the crowd “Let’s have trial by combat,” a remark he has since claimed was a reference to Game of Thrones.Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, another name frequently mentioned in connection to a possible Trump pardon, was also not expected to be on the list.The list of pardons was prepared over the weekend in a series of meetings involving the White House counsel, Pat A Cipollone, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.It is traditional for US presidents to issue pardons and clemency at the end of their term in office. Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, George W Bush commuted the sentence of former staffer Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who had been found guilty of perjury, and Bill Clinton controversially pardoned the financier Marc Rich in a move widely criticised as being corrupt, after Rich’s ex-wife had made substantial donations to Clinton-related causes. More

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      Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez to perform at Biden inauguration

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      Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez are among a host of celebrities set to perform at Joe Biden’s inauguration next week.Lady Gaga will sing the national anthem as the president-elect and vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, are sworn in on the West Front of the US Capitol on 20 January, and Lopez is also expected to give a musical performance.Foo Fighters, John Legend and Bruce Springsteen will offer remote performances, and Eva Longoria and and Kerry Washington will introduce segments of the event.Later that day, Tom Hanks will host a 90-minute primetime TV special celebrating Biden’s inauguration. Other performers include Justin Timberlake, Jon Bon Jovi, Demi Lovato and Ant Clemons.Despite a raging pandemic that is forcing most inaugural events online, it was a sign that Hollywood was eager to embrace the new president-elect four years after many big names stayed away from the inauguration of Donald Trump, who is hugely unpopular in Hollywood.But how would the star wattage play across the country as Biden seeks to unite a bruised nation? Eric Dezenhall, a Washington crisis management consultant and former Reagan administration official, predicted reaction would fall “along tribal lines”.“I think it all comes down to the reinforcement of pre-existing beliefs,” Dezenhall said. “If you’re a Biden supporter, it’s nice to see Lady Gaga perform.” But, he added, “what rallied Trump supporters was the notion of an uber-elite that had nothing to do at all with them and that they couldn’t relate to”.Presidential historian Tevi Troy quipped that the starry lineup was not A-list, but D-list – “for Democratic”.“When Democrats win you get the more standard celebrities,” said Troy, author of “What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House.“With Republicans you tend to get country music stars and race-car drivers.” Referring to Lady Gaga’s outspoken support for the Biden-Harris ticket, he said he was nostalgic for the days when celebrities were not so political.“In the end, I don’t think having Lady Gaga or J-Lo is all that divisive,” he said.Attendance at the inauguration will be severely limited, due to both the pandemic and fears of continued violence, following last week’s storming of the Capitol.Outside the official events, one of the more prominent galas each inauguration is the Creative Coalition’s quadrennial ball, a benefit for arts education. This year, the ball is entirely virtual.But it is star-studded nonetheless: the event, which will involve food being delivered simultaneously to attendees in multiple cities, will boast celebrity hosts including Jason Alexander, David Arquette, Matt Bomer, Christopher Jackson, Ted Danson, Lea DeLaria, Keegan Michael-Key, Chrissy Metz, Mandy Patinkin and many others.Robin Bronk, CEO of the non-partisan arts advocacy group, said she’s been deluged with celebrities eager to participate in some way. The event typically brings in anywhere from $500,000 to $2.5m, and this year the arts community is struggling like never before.She said it’s crucial to shine a spotlight and recognize that “the right to bear arts is not a red or blue issue. One of the reasons we have this ball is that we have to ensure the arts are not forgotten.”The Presidential Inaugural Committee also announced Thursday that the invocation will be given by the Rev Leo O’Donovan, a former Georgetown University president, and the pledge of allegiance will be led by Andrea Hall, a firefighter from Georgia. There will be a poetry reading from Amanda Gorman, the first national youth poet laureate, and the benediction will be given by the Rev Silvester Beaman of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church in Wilmington, Delaware.On the same platform, Biden sat in 2013 behind pop star Beyoncé as she sang The Star-Spangled Banner at Barack Obama’s second inauguration. James Taylor sang America the Beautiful, and Kelly Clarkson sang My Country, ’Tis of Thee.At Trump’s inauguration in 2017, the anthem was performed by 16-year-old singer Jackie Evancho. A number of top artists declined the opportunity to perform at the festivities, and one Broadway star, Jennifer Holliday, said she’d received death threats before she pulled out of her planned appearance.Most of the star power was centered at the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, where attendees included Madonna, Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johansson, Cher, Alicia Keys, Katy Perry, Emma Watson and many others. More