Image Credit: John Gurzinski/Getty Images
Hopefully Katy Perry won’t have another crazy Friday night — she’ll be performing at her third Obama rally on Saturday. President Obama will join her at the Milwaukee, Wisconsin event.
Tag: Mitt Romney (1-10 of 10)
Nov 1
2012
04:55 PM ET
Sep 21
2012
01:17 PM ET
Eddie Vedder finds Romney's comments 'very upsetting'
Image Credit: Rick Diamond/Getty Images
A lot of people took umbrage at Mitt Romney’s recently leaked comments, and Eddie Vedder is one of them.
“It’s very upsetting to hear a presidential candidate be so easily dismissive of such a ginormous amount of the population,” the Pearl Jam frontman said at a fundraiser for the president in Tampa yesterday. Vedder went on to tell the Obama donors that were Romney elected president, “none of those 47 percent of people would have a voice.”
And he has reason to be upset, too: the singer was once a 47%er himself. Vedder recalled the government training program that helped prepare him for his massively successful career as… a security guard.
Well, kind of — it was that gig that funded his artistic ambitions. ”It was that job that allowed me to also afford the guitars and tape recorder and microphones I needed to let me afford keep working on music,” Vedder said. “It was also the job I reluctantly left to move up to Seattle for less pay, in order to join a band. It all worked out.”
Sep 18
2012
11:51 AM ET
Randy Newman releases satirical election song 'I'm Dreaming': Hear it here
Image Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
When he isn’t crooning about friendship for Pixar or getting made fun of on Family Guy, Randy Newman is a pretty political guy, and he’s tossed his hat into the 2012 presidential election conversation with his new song “I’m Dreaming.”
The track tongue-in-cheekily features the refrain, “I’m dreaming of a white president.” The accompanying video is pretty scathing, aiming barbs at George W. Bush and a handful of absurd moments caught on tape (including an awesome sequence of Richard Nixon bowling).
On his website, Newman explained the song thusly: “I think there are a lot of people who find it jarring to have a black man in the White House and they want him out. They just can’t believe that there’s not a more qualified white man. You won’t get anyone, and I do mean anyone, to admit it.”
In addition to being a direct attack on racists, there’s an extended joke about how fat William Howard Taft is, as well as the lyric “Buh buh buh buh.” It’s the Randy Newman deluxe package, and you can check it out below: READ FULL STORY »
Sep 4
2012
09:00 AM ET
Nicki Minaj raps: 'I'm a Republican voting for Mitt Romney'
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have already been asked by several musical acts to stop playing their songs at Republican campaign events. Fortunately, they can count on one mainstream singer for political and musical support: Nicki Minaj. It appears the Trinidadian-born rapper and rumored soon-to-be American Idol judge is voting Republican this November, judging by the lyrics of her new NSFW duet with Lil Wayne. In “Mercy,” part of Lil Wayne’s new mixtape, Dedication 4, Minaj spits out,“I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney, you lazy b——s is f—— up the economy.”
Listen below: READ FULL STORY »
Aug 27
2012
03:35 PM ET
Campaign 2012 music news update: U.S. Presidential candidates joined by Kid Rock, Journey, the National, and more
Today’s announcement that erudite Brooklyn indie rockers The National (left) are opening for President Obama at a campaign event Iowa on September 1 marks the most recent development in the 2012 race’s musical circus — and one of the few examples of a music/candidate pairing that hasn’t resulted in somebody totally freaking out.
The band, who previously opened for Obama in 2008 alongside Ben Harper, bring a much-needed boost to the Democrats’ so-far-disappointing musical retinue.
The party generally known for its Hollywood connections and A-list support has had trouble attracting major entertainment names this year — significantly fewer celebrities are slated to attend its National Convention in Charlotte next week; the event’s relatively low-wattage lineup so far consists only of James Taylor, America’s Got Talent stars Inspire the Fire, and Duke University alums Delta Rae. (Compare that to 2008, when Kanye, Fall Out Boy, Black Eyed Peas, Rage Against the Machine, and Death Cab for Cutie all performed in Denver.) READ FULL STORY »
Aug 22
2012
03:45 PM ET
Dee Snider doesn't want Paul Ryan using Twisted Sister's 'We're Not Gonna Take It'
Image Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Dee Snider has spoken out against Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan reportedly using the Twisted Sister hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It” at a campaign event. According to Talking Points Memo, Ryan played the song at a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Snider later issued the following statement: “I emphatically denounce Paul Ryan’s use of my song ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ as recorded by my band Twisted Sister. There is almost nothing on which I agree with Paul Ryan, except perhaps the use of the P90X.” A rep for Ryan could not be reached for comment.
Last week, Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, who Ryan has cited as one of his favorite bands, wrote an op-ed for Rolling Stone describing Ryan as “the the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades.”
Read more:
Paul Ryan gets Raged against, care of Tom Morello
Silversun Pickups ask Mitt Romney to stop using ‘Panic Switch’ at events
Presidential PopWatch round-up on Paul Ryan: Ayn Rand disciple, Deadhead, catfish noodler
Aug 17
2012
11:46 AM ET
Paul Ryan gets Raged against, care of Tom Morello
Image Credit: Tom Morello/Getty Images
One of the hazards of becoming a public figure is that you sometimes learn that the artists you idolized are not necessarily the people you thought (or hoped) they were. Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan just got an extra-intense dose of that yesterday when Rolling Stone published an op-ed written by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello that described Ryan as “the the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades.”
Ryan, who has cited Rage as one of his favorite bands, took it on the chin. “Ryan claims that he likes Rage’s sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don’t care for Paul Ryan’s sound or his lyrics,” Morello wrote. “He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.” READ FULL STORY »
Aug 16
2012
10:19 AM ET
Silversun Pickups ask Mitt Romney to stop using 'Panic Switch' at events
Image Credit: Steven Dewall/Redferns
If crazed metal frontmen are spewing made-up rhetoric and clueless candidates are using pop songs without the permission of the artists, then it must be an election season!
Last time around, it seemed like every week a candidate was chastised by a rock star for using a song without permission, and now comes one of the stranger ones in a long time. Recently, the Mitt Romney campaign used Los Angeles alt-rockers Silversun Pickups’ 2009 track “Panic Switch” at an event, and that did not sit well with the band.
“We don’t like people going behind our backs, using our music without asking, and we don’t like the Romney campaign,” Pickups frontman Brian Aubert said in a statement. “We’re nice, approachable people. We won’t bite. Unless you’re Mitt Romney! We were very close to just letting this go because the irony was too good. While he is inadvertently playing a song that describes his whole campaign, we doubt that ‘Panic Switch’ really sends the message he intends.”
The band has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Romney campaign, asking that they no longer use “Panic Switch.” READ FULL STORY »
Apr 24
2012
01:52 PM ET
French presidential candidate borrows Kanye and Jay-Z's 'N--as in Paris' for campaign video
Image Credit: Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS
With the national election getting ready for the long summer slog, we can look forward to a cavalcade of inappropriate song use. (Remember all the musicians who got upset about John McCain using their music during the 2008 campaign? Or when Jackson Browne sued the Republicans? Or earlier this year when Tom Petty asked Michele Bachmann to stop using “American Girl”? Prepare for a whole lot of cease-and-desist letters, Mitt Romney.)
Whatever famous names and songs Romney and Barack Obama end up co-opting for their causes, neither of them will be able to top French presidential candidate François Hollande, who is in the midst of a push towards a run-off vote on May 6 with incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. In a three-minute spot that plugs Hollande’s support of the Parisian suburbs, he chose Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “N—-s In Paris” as a soundtrack. He even leaves in the wacky Will Ferrell sample.
As a piece of political propaganda, it succeeds, even with lyrical snafus (that “fish filet” line sounds especially goofy in this context). Watch it below. READ FULL STORY »
Feb 28
2012
11:27 AM ET
Kid Rock performs 'Born Free' for Mitt Romney campaign stop: Watch it here
Image Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Since no candidate so far has used “So Hott” as their campaign theme song, it looks like Kid Rock has cast his vote.
After Mitt Romney paid a personal visit to Kid Rock’s home, the two native Michiganders appeared on stage together at a campaign rally in Royal Oak, Mich.
“I’m happy to introduce a son of Detroit,” the Republican contender said to his audience. “A friend, a guy who makes great music, who introduces me by DVD everywhere I go: Kid Rock!”
The long-haired musician and his band then ran through “Born Free,” the song that Romney has adopted as his campaign theme song. Check it out in the video below:
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