Make American Great Again Welcome Celebration
Music Review
Concert for Trump Misses an Opportunity
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In an interview with CNN on Midweek night, Thomas Banter Jr., who heads the Presidential Inaugural Committee, was asked whether Kanye Due west, who vocally supported Donald J. Trump's candidacy last yr, and who visited him in Trump Tower in December following his victory, would be performing at whatsoever of the inaugural events.
"Nosotros haven't asked him," Mr. Barrack replied. Rather than stop at that place, he continued: "Information technology's non the venue. The venue we take for entertainment is filled out. It'southward perfect. It'southward going to be typically and traditionally American."
Post-obit a political season in which quarrels over inclusion and exclusion in the United States — in senses literal, metaphorical and philosophical — were cardinal and heated, the "Make America Groovy Again! Welcome Commemoration" was an opportunity to make a loud case. The phase was a stiff one: the National Mall in Washington, just beneath the Lincoln Memorial. The concert was broadcast live on CNN and online.
What was presented as "typically and traditionally American," however, veered between jingoism and vaudevillian fluff and largely ignored the contribution of African-Americans to popular music (which is to say, almost all of pop music).
Instead information technology focused heavily on country and rock by white Southerners, including the state superstar Toby Keith, who has been the nation's loudest musical cheerleader for a decade and a half; the Mississippi difficult-stone band 3 Doors Downwards, which was a favorite in the early-to-mid 2000s; and the Frontmen of Country, an amalgam of lite-land singers made famous in other bands.
It was a spotty lineup, though not a wholly ineffective i. 3 Doors Down's songs remain sturdy, and the frontman Brad Arnold's voice was strong, though denuded of its sleazy edges. And Mr. Keith, the headliner, in a heavy overcoat and a scruffy beard, delivered stiff patriotism via strong narratives.
Mr. Keith isn't as elementary a choice every bit he might appear from a distance. In the by, he'due south been a registered Democrat, and here, he thanked President Obama for his service before offer a salute to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Keith's career soared after ix/eleven, when his music took an aggressive plow. At this show, he played the pugnacious and proud "Courtesy of the Reddish, White and Blue (The Angry American)," and too "American Soldier," a meditative embrace of patriotic dedication. He also played "Beer for My Horses," with its not-very-ambivalent endorsement of onetime-time vigilante justice: "Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree/Round up all them bad boys, hang them high in the street/For all the people to see."
Mr. Keith's songs most America are very conscious of identify, and at this show, that proved an effective strategy. The Frontmen of Country leaned heavily on songs that mentioned bucolic Southern settings: "God Blest Texas," "Amy'south Back in Austin," "Walking in Memphis." And Lee Greenwood joined them for "God Bless the U.South.A.," a bleak march of national pride.
In total, the concert's bulletin was that America is a divers geographical and ideological space, with borders worth defending, even at the cost of excluding those who could make the identify immeasurably more fun.
This concert concluded up being as notable for who did not show upwards every bit for who did. The merely featured nonwhite performers were Sam Moore (of the 1960s soul duo Sam & Dave), who sang a restrained "America the Beautiful" backed by an all-black choir, and DJ Ravidrums, who delivered his dim, caffeinated percussive interstitials from inside a spherical theme-park drum kit. But both of those acts got just a couple of minutes. The United States Regular army Quondam Guard Fife and Drum Corps got much more time for their two-centuries-quondam songs.
When Mr. Trump first appeared onstage at the prove, accompanied by his wife, Melania, it was to the Rolling Stones's "Eye of Rock," a song about a man who tin can't be swayed. At the end of the concert, Mr. Trump addressed the crowd briefly, thanked the performers, and suggested that hosting this consequence in front of the Lincoln Memorial might have been an unprecedented choice.
That was not truthful. In 2009, Mr. Obama held a pre-inauguration concert here, "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial." It included athletes, actors and musicians from across genres — Mary J. Blige singing Bill Withers's "Lean on Me," Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen singing "This Country Is Your Land," a vocal of acceptance and respect for the nation. It was a evidence of cosmopolitanism and inclusion that portrayed America not equally a fixed idea, but equally an ever-irresolute sum.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/arts/music/trump-make-america-great-again-concert-review.html
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