Daily Dot Analysis Seems to Have Uncovered J.D. Vance's Spotify Playlist

Our own Grateful Calvin published a fantastic VIP piece Friday about MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who was pretending to be in Milwaukee at the Republican National Convention, calling J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" famous for being popular among the "far-right" and the "alt-right," both here and in Europe.

Maddow's apparent problem? Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance had named his business Narya, which comes from "The Lord of the Rings." Maddow's genius brain figured out that if you move the N to the end of the name, it spells "Aryan." She gets paid millions for this kind of analysis.

Greg Price points out that Vance's love of "The Lord of the Rings" made the headlines this week, along with Vance's long-abondoned Spotify playlist.

Here are just a few ways the media has attacked @JDVance1 over the last week:

- He likes Lord of the Rings
- He believes the Devil is real
- He is too masculine
- He is friends with people on Venmo and has a Spotify account pic.twitter.com/8XlWUzpCLr
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 20, 2024

We never cared about politicians' Spotify playlists — we still don't. But the Obama administration got the ball rolling by releasing Barack Obama's personally curated playlist for summer. Earlier this year, Axios had an EXCLUSIVE report that Trump's closest friends say his Mar-a-Lago Spotify playlist "is a window into how his mind works."

Now Slate has picked up on another exclusive from the Daily Dot: Vance's Spotify playlist.

I may have listened to J.D. Vance’s Spotify playlists. What I learned was uncomfortable. https://t.co/eh5XaiNec3
— Slate (@Slate) July 19, 2024

There is a public Spotify profile under the username “JD Vance” that potentially gives a small but surprisingly intimate snapshot into the Republican senator’s music tastes. The account is seemingly connected to Vance’s private Facebook profile, and even follows someone who appears to be an old Yale Law School classmate of the Ohio senator. An analysis by the Daily Dot has also concluded that the account, which hasn’t been updated in several years, appears to belong to the J.D. Vance—and points out that several artists included in the account’s playlists have explicitly denounced Trump and the far right at large.
…
A Spotify playlist can only tell you so much about a person—but it does tell you some things. A guy who enjoys the political and cultural backing of some of the most cynical, ill-intentioned billionaires of Silicon Valley doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would listen to the Strokes while he goes on a run. After looking through this Spotify, I can’t help but imagine Vance scream-singing to “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys as he puts together a crappy meal in his kitchen like I’ve done before.
The Spotify account reveals a discrepancy between Vance’s public image and who he is when he’s out of the spotlight. The kind of person he was before the bestselling memoir, the Netflix adaptation, the Silicon Valley schmoozing, and the political ascendancy.

First of all … "the far-right at large." A Google search reveals that Slate did report on the far-left once, in 2018, in Italy. Second, according to Tran, Vance "wants to look like the guy who listens to Merle Haggard" but in reality listens to The Strokes and Death Cab for Cutie. What Tran finds uncomfortable is that he likes Vance's taste in music.

You all care way too much.
— Tom Schultz (@thomasjschultz) July 19, 2024

Holy moly! You mean to tell me that a universe exists where people are capable of enjoying the art of people with whom they disagree politically???
— George Bell (@_George_Bell_) July 19, 2024