Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Would you like Kamala Harris to promote your album? Well, your wish can come true, thanks to a web designer who has created a site called Kamala Holding Vinyls. It uses the widely circulated 2023 picture of the US vice-president exiting a small indie record shop in Washington DC holding up a good old-fashioned LP to show what she’d bought. Now, thanks to the machinations of the internet, the new site swaps in whatever record you want, and can show a beaming Veep brandishing your choice for inspection.The result, according to Rolling Stone magazine this week, has been a “meme-a-thon avalanche”.But wait — why would any self-respecting musician of the moment want a super-straight member of the US political establishment to plug their music? Wouldn’t that usually spell street-rep death?Not in this case, it seems. The music world has taken Harris to its heart. “She has genuine musical cred,” the web designer told Rolling Stone.Before her presidential bid of 2019 Harris released a summer playlist that caused flutters: A Tribe Called Quest, Jazmine Sullivan and Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny were surprising inclusions. And the music theme has continued: after another 2023 visit to a small record store, this time in Grand Rapids, Michigan (a swing state, by the way — she’s not daft), Harris demanded of the crowd: “Does everybody know who George Clinton is? Do you know P-Funk? No? OK. Well there is lessons to be taught.”Leaving aside the questionable grammar of that last remark, it probably earned her more voter support than a plethora of policy statements.Since Joe Biden stepped down and Harris launched her bid for the presidency, her musical choices have caused plenty of comment. The campaign video that appeared as if by magic within moments is based around Beyoncé’s anthem “Freedom”, with the star’s eager approval.Using superstar power ballads in presidential campaigns is nothing new, but choices can backfire. When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” from that year belted out across his rallies — though it was reported to be without the Boss’s permission and to his great displeasure. Even though Springsteen publicly aligned with the Democrats, and more recently has called Donald Trump a “moron” and a “toxic narcissist”, his song was played at Trump rallies in 2016 and adopted as an anthem by some of his supporters.Sad to say, the fate of ‘Born in the USA’ shows that a pumping beat and an apparently easy slogan win out over actual words every timeSurprisingly, it seems hard to stop politicians co-opting a song. Trump has done that repeatedly, often to the fury of musicians: Elton John, Adele, Earth, Wind & Fire, Aerosmith, Creedence Clearwater Revival and others have made loud public yelps about their music being used. Sad to say, the fate of “Born in the USA” shows that a pumping beat and an apparently easy slogan win out over lyrics every time — the song is actually about a miserably disillusioned returned veteran who can’t get a job: a protest song, in effect. But in rock music the medium easily beats the message.British political campaigns are very different, perhaps because the UK doesn’t go in for US-style giant cult-worship rallies. But musical choices still tend to the simplistic: think of Tony Blair in 1997 using D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” — no complicated message there. There was a distinct echo this time, when the choice of Keir Starmer’s team (despite him being well known to be a Beethoven man) was the summery banger “Better Times” by Låpsley & KC Lights. Again, it was all in the title.No one can remember whether former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak ever had any musical favourites, but we will all remember his down-beaten, rain-sodden election announcement outside 10 Downing Street this year — when “Things Can Only Get Better” was played by some bright spark in the crowd.Back in the USA, however, the use of music has got way more sophisticated. The message and the medium get equal billing. When Harris strode out at the 2020 Democratic convention to Mary J Blige’s feminist hit “Work That” — which also featured that November at the Biden/Harris presidential election victory — it was easy to believe that here was someone who knows what she’s doing.The voters thought so too, according to the polls and the online reaction. All politicians use music — some of them might even be genuinely keen on it — but usually it’s just part of the show, no more significant than the banners or the bunting. What’s happened with Harris, though, is that her musical chops have brought heartfelt responses from a whole chunk of the wider public.Her record as VP might be all but invisible to outsiders and her trouser-suits-’n’-pearls style only just this side of mumsy. But, oddly perhaps, she’s earned support from the likes of pop singer Charli XCX, whose post on X, “kamala IS brat” (the title of Charli’s new album), reached millions. In reply, Harris’s X profile (@kamalahq) adopted the brilliant “brat green” as its header.Whether any of this will play in Poughkeepsie, as the old vaudevillians would ask, or whether it’ll just cause a backlash in the vast Trump-voting flyover states, remains to be seen. But it makes you wonder: could the music win it for Kamala Harris?Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life & Art wherever you listen
