EXCLUSIVE: J.D. Vance’s personal Spotify playlists littered with anti-Trump artists

Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance appears to listen to artists who, much like himself, have publicly criticized his 2024 running mate former President Donald Trump.

A Spotify profile with his name—and a 2021 photo of himself with his dad at a Trump rally—shows the current Ohio senator following three accounts: Imagine Dragons, Rage Against the Machine, and a lawyer who graduated from Yale Law School the same year he did.

It's unclear when it may have last been used, though the playlists were made between 2012-13. However, Vance himself confirmed in January that he is a Spotify user, writing on X that he was "listening to the best of 1990 rock playlist on Spotify (my current jam)."

The profile shows seven public playlists, five of which he curated. Those include playlists named "Making Dinner," "Running #1," and "Soul+" as well as two playlists titled after songs—"Morning Has Broken" by Cat Stevens and "Gold On The Ceiling" by The Black Keys.

The two playlists he did not create are Spotify's compilation of acoustic covers and "Rockabye Baby!" a nearly 21-hour-long playlist of lullaby renditions of classic rock and pop songs. (Vance has three children, ages 6; 4; and 2.)

The Daily Dot reached out to Vance's Senate office to confirm the authenticity of the account but has not yet heard back.

Much of the media attention on Trump selecting Vance as his running mate focused on the senator's shift from being an outspoken critic of Trump and a self-proclaimed Never Trumper to becoming one of his fiercest advocates.

In 2016, Vance dubbed Trump an "idiot," a possible “America’s Hitler” and "unfit for our nation’s highest office." He has since done a complete 180, saying in January that "the Republican Party without Donald Trump is a disaster, morally and politically."

And it seems that Vance's Spotify playlists are filled with artists who have also taken aim at Trump.

On the 40-minute "Making Dinner" playlist, created in 2012, Vance included Justin Bieber's "One Time." Bieber in 2019 commended Trump's efforts to get A$AP Rocky out of Swedish custody but simultaneously took a dig, asking "while (you’re) at it...can you also let those kids out of cages?"

The "Gold on the Ceiling" playlist is filled with artists who have taken an anti-Trump stance, including Sheryl Crow, who in 2017 floated supporting impeaching Trump; Lisa Loeb, a vocal proponent of voting blue; and Ryan Adams, who called Trump "a fucking moron."

That playlist includes Death Cab for Cutie, which in 2016 released an anti-Trump song called "Million Dollar Loan" that was specifically “written and recorded by musicians for a Trump-free America.”

There's also Tracy Chapman, who called on everyone in 2020 to "vote to restore our democracy;" Billy Bragg, who derided "strong undercurrents of racism and misogyny" among Trump's base; U2, whose frontman Bono has done little to hide his disdain for Trump; and more.

It's perhaps unavoidable to have a playlist without any Trump critics, with so much of the music industry based out of liberal-leaning cities such as Los Angeles and New York. But notably absent from Vance's public playlists are prominent Trump-supporting musicians, such as Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, and Trace Adkins. Only one artist on one of his public playlists appears to be a vocal supporter of Trump: Travis Tritt.

Vance, for all his self-proclaimed Appalachia credentials, seems to have the music sensibilities of an urban hipster millennial, which makes sense given his East Coast Ivy League background.

On Vance's running playlist, made in 2013, anti-Trump artists included Queens of the Stone Age, who offered one of the strongest Trump criticisms of any musician mentioned yet, dubbing him in 2017 a "shallow, inept, multi-bankrupt declaring, narcissistic, narrow minded, out of touch, objectifying, barf inducing, fascist, clown penis… who also happens to be re-stup-redicu-lame."

Also on the running playlist are OK Go, who performed an anti-Trump cover of Morrissey's "Interesting Drug"; The Killers, who have made their political stance clear; and Matt and Kim, who took a couple of swings at Trump (literally) by tossing the audience at Coachella a Trump pinata.

His "Morning Has Broken" playlist similarly boasts a mix of artists that have been critical of Trump.

Among them are Bonnie Raitt, who said Trump's White House tenure made things become "more absurd and more difficult and more scary and depressing than I ever even expected;" Joe Biden proponents James Taylor and Roberta Flack; and Kacey Musgraves, who said in 2020 that voting for Trump is "an act of violence" against the LGBT community. The playlist also includes Badly Drawn Boy, who tweeted a photo of a Donald Duck-Donald Trump mash-up farting.

He does have some nods to his supposed country roots on the playlist, which include Carrie Underwood and Lady A.

On the "Soul+" playlist, most of the included artists passed away long before ever needing an opinion on Trump. Stevie Wonder, however, is an exception to that, quipping at the start of the Black Lives Matter movement that “it’s a bad day when I can see better than your 2020 vision."

None of this is to say Vance only listens to anti-Trump artists. Plenty of other musicians on the playlists have taken stances about specific policies, had some band members outspoken more than others, or have refrained from weighing in altogether.

And as Vance will attest, his politics have changed. Whether his taste in music has too is unknown.

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