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Dear Beyoncé and Taylor: Thanks for Staying Home. The DNC Benefited From Treating Musicians as Opening Acts, Not Headliners
The music of the convention benefitted from having strong picks, from Jason Isbell to Pink, who didn't overshadow the actual rock-star speakers.
The inherent dangers are in overshadowing, but also in the inevitable backlash against a surfeit of “Hollywood elites.” The approach of producers Ricky Kershner and Glenn Weiss to using entertainers, generally, as well as musicians, specifically, seemed to be: Sprinkle lightly, just for seasoning… and for just enough cachet to gently remind viewers that, sure, the vast majority of people in the arts are on your side. Of course, at the Republican National Convention, that was kind of a joke: Apart from Kid Rock, who counts as an honorary country artist (much to the chagrin of most genre fans), and Lee Greenwood, who has a legit-classic song (albeit one that was buzzier when Reagan used it in the ’80s), RNC had to settle for the likes of Chris Janson and Brian Kelley, the Andrew Ridgeley of Florida Georgia Line. Of course, the Chicks becoming national pariahs goes back more than 20 years now — they were the first and still all-time champions among mass cancel culture victims — while Morris’ status in country is still a bit on the bubble, since she admitted feeling alienated from the genre after tangling with Aldean’s wife in a public dispute about trans kids.
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