Totally agree with Onhwy61 about the myopically parochial definitions of what constitutes "rock" music, and the cause: ignorance (and/or revision) of history -- if not downright narcissism, or yes, racism. (Don't anybody get their pants in a twist! In this society we are all, every last one of us -- black, white, whatever -- racists to varying degrees, meaning we prejudge and assign qualities and catagories to people based on our perceptions and preconceptions about race; it's our unavoidable inheritance, and only a question of our honesty and consciousness whether we acknowledge it.) Just an accurate reflection I'm sure of the racial/political/socioeconomic makeup of an audiophile website...
As for the topic at hand (and let me stipulate to being, if not always doctrinaire "liberal" or particularly supportive of the Democratic party, at least in no way Republican-leaning myself), I agree with those pointing out the actual or likely social/political stances of many of the artists listed. This apparent dichotomy is indicative of a perfectly understandable desire to personally "possess" the art one values, and any artist eventually comes to understand (unless they check out prematurely in disgust like Kurt Cobian) that once you put it out there in the world, your work *will* be taken as something other than what you intended by people with whom you violently disagree. Multiply that factor by the confounding, often contradictory definitions -- depending on who is doing the defining -- of what is "liberal" and what is "conservative", and you quickly see that almost anything can go.
One example will illustrate this perfectly, "My City Was Gone" by Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders. I have little doubt that Ms. Hynde probably abhors Rush Limbaugh and all that he stands for, but he evidently loves her music. There is really no contradiction in that -- music is universally appealing, and a good beat plus a memorable bassline knows no political boundaries. As for the lyric, the list presents the song as a complaint against big government:
Virtually every conservative knows the bass line, which supplies the theme music for Limbaugh's radio show. But the lyrics also display a Jane Jacobs sensibility against central planning and a conservative's dissatisfaction with rapid change: "I went back to Ohio / But my pretty countryside / Had been paved down the middle / By a government that had no pride."
I admit to having no idea who Jane Jacobs is -- nor do I suspect that I'd want to -- but my interpretation, which I quite naturally see as being much more reasonable and true to the artist's intent, is that Hynde is probably anti-development and pro-environment, and rails against a government she describes as having "no pride" because it failed, maybe due to corruption among other things, to protect the natural world as she knew it when she was younger from capitalistic exploitation and destruction. Am I right?
I don't know for sure, but I do know this shows that oft-repeated, overly-literal nostrums such as "conservatives are the ones against change and for preserving tradition" are highly conditional statements at best, empty or even misleading sloganeering at worst. But I also smell a whiff of cynical dishonesty on the part of the authors: I think they know damn well that it's generally not conservatives -- as that philosophy is projected by the modern Republican party and for whom the listmakers presumably carry water -- who decry paving over and developing countryside in this nation (the "exurbs" of costly, widely separated "McMansions" exploding around the previously rural areas outside my own city -- an instance of "rapid change" if ever there was one -- are dominantly populated by white dittoheads with SUVs in every driveway). But even that fact is not devoid of irony or interpretation: Any farms that were lost were probably owned by self-described conservatives, yet who probably accepted big government subsidies to grow their crops and sought government protections to help sell them in artificially regulated markets, while the Interstate roadway system that helped beget the whole situation is a classic case of big government that has been well-supported by administrations of both parties.
What does all this really have to do with rock and roll? Probably not much. At base, rock is about S-E-X. If they're true to their proclaimed philosophies -- or even just seeking publicity -- then conservatives should (and sometimes do) have a problem with rock because it's immoral or ammoral, while liberals should (and sometimes do) have a problem with it because it's sexist or exploitive. Which only goes to show that, since we all seem to like the music anyway, we are driven by deeper urges than ostensibly political/social ones.
