Before his speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night, Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s newly christened VP pick J.D. Vance walked onto the stage in front of a roaring crowd to the tune of “America First” by Merle Haggard—but, if this Spotify playlist is any indication, I think he actually might have been more comfortable if it were Justin Bieber’s “One Time” instead.
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.
Country and folk are common throughout the five playlists created between 2012 and 2013, the years the Hillbilly Elegy author was at law school. These playlists include artists such as the Avett Brothers, Mumford and Sons, Johnny Cash, and Old Crow Medicine Show. The account owner is also a fan of soul music, with an entire playlist dedicated to the likes of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, and Aretha Franklin.
The account’s earliest playlist, titled “Making Dinner,” is perhaps the most … er, wide-ranging of the bunch. It opens with “The First Noel” by Nat King Cole (which makes sense as it was created on Dec. 15, 2012) before winding through a veritable sonic roller coaster, from the Black Keys’ “Gold on the Ceiling,” to Florence and the Machine’s “Shake It Out,” to even (yes!) Justin Bieber’s “One Time.” The playlist also gives a look into its owner’s undeniable millennial bona fides with the likes of Death Cab for Cutie, Of Monsters and Men, and Sufjan Stevens making appearances. Apparently, not even Vance is immune to the appeal of 2000s indie.
So … is this really the VP nominee’s old Spotify account? I’ve reached out to Vance’s office for comment and did not receive an immediate response. Vance had previously suggested that he is a Spotify user, the Daily Dot noted. The profile picture is also the same as Vance’s private Facebook profile of him and his father at a Trump rally in 2021. If you sign up for Spotify by linking your Facebook account, your profile picture matches on both. The Spotify profile follows three other accounts: the bands Imagine Dragons (lol) and Rage Against the Machine (because nothing says “fight systemic oppression” like the man who once said he doesn’t believe abortion should be legal even in cases of rape or incest), and the profile that appears to belong to a woman who graduated from Yale Law School the same year Vance did. A further look into her profile revealed several other followers who appear to have also graduated from the same law school class. It’s interesting to imagine what J.D. Vance might want us to take from his old public playlists—if he knows they are public, that is.
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.
Vance tries to portray himself the way he did in his memoir and subsequent political career: a “local boy makes good” story about a scrappy kid from rural Ohio who climbed his way out of poverty to make something of himself. He wants to look like the guy who listens to Merle Haggard and hangs with the type of blue-collar folks that make up Trump’s base. This account allows us to picture him as something else: just another aging millennial who’d rather be in his feelings while he cooks dinner and listens to Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.” Instead, he’s wound up in a tangle of hypocrisy.
The most surprising feature of the account to me is a playlist titled “Morning Has Broken,” after a Cat Stevens song. This is partly because it’s filled with the type of music I would have listened to when it was first compiled in 2013—and still do now. An eclectic array of folk, pop, country, and a smattering of jazz more fitting of the creative and laid-back spirit of the Laurel Canyon of the 1970s than of the zealous fervor of the RNC in 2024.
On this playlist, you’ll hear the ethereal strains of Stevie Nicks on “Landslide,” the rich yet delicate melancholy of Joni Mitchell, and the roaring timbre of Marcus Mumford on “I Will Wait.” Tracy Chapman will beg you to give her one reason to stay, and Alison Krauss’ soaring voice beckons you down to the river to pray. The playlist—I regret to inform you—completely slaps. Towards the end of the playlist are the account holder’s latest and, potentially, last additions to his profile: “Merry Go ’Round” by Kacey Musgraves, which he told Musgraves was his “favorite song” in an interview the two did for Time magazine back in 2017, and “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood. Two songs that inadvertently capture the type of person J.D. Vance is: One is a bittersweet reflection on rural, small-town upbringing, and the other is an angry revenge anthem for those hellbent on destroying everything in their path.
I’ll be honest: This playlist was uncomfortable to listen to—mostly because it makes me realize just how much in common I might have with Vance. A man who represents so many things I’m diametrically opposed to, taking alarming positions on issues from immigration, to abortion rights, to LGBTQ+ issues. And yet, here I am, singing softly along to the Avett Brothers’ “Live and Die” (Track 33 on the Morning Has Broken playlist) as I write this—just as Vance might have done at one time when he was younger many, many songs ago.
