Music Constructing a playlist for election night required more ingenuity than I was expecting. The obvious first decision was what to include and since the evening was all about the United States of America, it was important to include those. But in what order? Alphabetical didn’t have quite the right narrative energy.
At first I considered the order in which they declared their allegiance to a candidate, but glancing across live blogs from different media outlets it became apparent that there wasn’t a definitive order due to all of them making their choices independently, by and large. Since 2000, outlets are less likely to simply copy one another it seems.
Ultimately I decided on the order the polls closed as per BostInno, which suggests somewhat the epic sweep of the election across the country from east to west and now voting is still happening at one end of the country even as elections are being called on the other. Is the musical equivalent of driving from coast to coast.
The other rule was that the track title should only include the state’s name and nothing more. So no Midnight Train To Georgia, Sweet Home Alabama or Carolina on my Mind (which also means it doesn’t replicate The Guardian’s attempt in 2007) (which is worth visiting for the correction at the bottom).
I’ve tried to keep to artists you’ve had some success, include as many hits as possible. Otherwise there’s a preponderance of obscure country, guitar bands and female singer-songwriters. There are also a few of Obama’s supporters, which was a pleasant surprise. This list is semantic and syntactic.
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