The 2024 elections have intertwined music and politics more than ever. Will it affect how we vote?

The etymology of charm, as Sonnevend tells me, is the Latin ‘carmen’, meaning ‘song’ or ‘incantation’. With his charm, Obama managed to unite enough people to put him in the White House not once, but twice. Not every candidate is so lucky – or so charming. For example, Hillary Clinton has struggled with accusations of inauthenticity (reasonable or not) throughout her career.

Taking a page from the Obama playbook, Clinton released a campaign playlist in the summer of 2015. This consisted of top 100 radio hits, mostly from 2010, that no one believed they were actually listening to. The three songs that scored her campaign are still spoken of with trepidation, Katy Perry’s “Roar,” Sara Bareilles’ “Brave,” and most infamously, Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.” to this day. Sonnevend, who was encouraged by her students at The New School to include a section in her book on the concept of “cringe,” says there is a fine line between successful performance and the flood of content that the ultimate Gen-Z -sin causes. Repetition can be a key factor in making a performance cringe, and the sweet taste of Clinton’s millennial, girl-power pop songs pushed many people over the edge (see: “Fight Song’ is miserable garbage and unsuitable for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign”).

“Music can also cause damage if voters see you as insincere,” Kajikawa testifies. Some voters who already viewed Clinton as dishonest were further discouraged by her strangely youthful campaign song choices, and even some of her supporters may have formed negative associations with the campaign after hearing that refrain for the thousandth time. While Clinton’s outrageous musical choices didn’t lead to Donald Trump winning the 2016 election, they ultimately drew more attention to the stiff public perception she sought to redefine. In her book, Sonnevend also discusses the concept of unmasking, where a politician – intentionally or unintentionally – leaves the layers of media training and campaign money and is momentarily “normal.” With her choice of power pop, Clinton pulled off one mask to reveal another.

While music can work for or against a candidate, it can also take on a life of its own. One of the biggest changes we have faced as a country, starting with the 2008 election, has been the rise of social media. TikTok, which only started in 2020, has transformed the way we listen to and interact with music and has played a major role big role in the 2024 elections. “Anyone can make a video, upload it and make it go viral,” Kajikawa points out, “and then the campaigns have to decide whether they want to respond to it or embrace it.”