The Political Dividing Lines of Music

It’s election season and we’re surrounded by polling about candidates and campaign issues. It follows there would be a poll to test the musical preferences of Republicans versus Democrats.

YouGov asked people last year whether they love, like, dislike or hate 20 genres of music. From that data, YouGov determined each genre’s net popularity score – that is, how much more likely Americans are to say they love or like a genre of music than to say they dislike or hate it.

Contrary to popular belief, Republicans and Democrats can agree, at least on their favorite musical genre – classic rock. Truer to form, the two parties are far apart on how much they like classic rock. Republicans like it twice as much as Democrats. As many Republicans favor country music as Democrats favor classic rock.

Democrats out-fan Republicans in R&B/Hip-Hop, Rap, Jazz and Alternative/Indie music. More Republicans, somewhat incongruously, like both hard rock and contemporary Christian music than Democrats.

Survey results indicate classic rock is the preferred melody for everyone aged 30 to over age 65, for both males and females, every income strata and every section of America – if you are white.

Top tunes for Black Americans are R&B and Latin for Hispanic Americans. Classic rock doesn’t rank in the top three genres for either group. The 18-29 demographic’s top three are rap/hip-hop, country and world music.

If you want to see deep division, check out the age splits on country music versus R&B/Hip-Hop. Nearly 40 percent of people aged 18-29 favor R&B/Hip-Hop over less than 20 percent who prefer country. In the 65+ cohort, it’s 50 percent for country and less than 30 percent for R&B/Hip-Hop.

There are mirror opposites for Democrats and Republicans. Forty percent of Democrats like R&B/Hip-Hop compared to around 30 percent who like country. Slightly more than 40 percent of Republicans like country music over slightly more than 30 percent who like R&B/Hip-hop. Political independents are basically tied at around 37-38 percent.

Classic rock outpolls all other genres with more than 80 percent who love it or like it. Only 10 percent dislike it or hate it. Pop, R&B, Blues, Country, Classical and Jazz all poll with more than 60 percent of love it or like it, but with increasing percentages of dislike it or hate it. World music has the dubious honor of having as many people unsure whether they like it as love it or like it. Punk rock has an even more dubious honor – more people dislike or hate it than like it. Politics and ethnicity didn’t make a difference.