Article by Lauren Rosewarne /
Meanjin /
November 7, 2018 /
Years ago I heard about a speed-dating event held at a library in Melbourne. Participants were asked to bring along a copy of their favourite book to, seemingly, serve as some kind of sex totem.
It wasn’t an event I attended and yet, in the years since, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about it.
Years on and I find myself wondering whether people scoured those Important Literature lists offered up by the broadsheets and picked something pithy and provocative to convey an air of well-readedness. Whether, maybe, they used the opportunity to be ironic, droll. I vacillate between thinking I’d have entertained myself by taking a copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad—which for reasons that I’ve never understood many exes owned—else something that stirs in a little danger with romantic optimism: right now I’m thinking The Widow’s Guide to Sex & Dating.
I have no ability to view the task as anything other than painfully—if artfully—contrived. The book prop seemed like a means to sell a story of self. Not self as real but self as imagined. Self as presented as interesting, as desirable. Arguably we’ve each become very well-versed in a version of this lark through our social media posts: offering up breadcrumb glimpses into a self we’re putting on display.
So when perusing PM ScoMo’s playlists—he issued his Oz list only after the absence of ridgy didge content on his Eighties Plus list was flagged as alarming—I can’t help but speculate on what he’s chosen to reveal about himself.
88 songs. A lot of INXS, much Midnight Oil. The Sunny Boys is about as ‘indie’ as it gets. Crowded House and Split Enz challenge the rules of the game, but hey, I’m no purist. There are some big-ticket omissions like Nick Cave, The Go-Betweens and Paul Kelly, and perhaps most surprising is the absence of Khe Sanh which seems distinctly odd given the whole backyard-barbeque-circa-1992 feel to the list. Props though, for the inclusion The Triffids’ Wide Open Road: it’s as close as I get to conjuring national pride.
The list is safe and it’s mainstream. It’s also very, very white and very very cock-centric.
In a response to ScoMo’s Spotify list Tweet, someone replied with a why: why on earth would anyone be remotely interested in the list. An all too fair question.
In an era of the social media politician though, this kind of branding will become ever more common. By curating playlists ScoMo is telling us a story about himself. He’s reminding us that he’s our first Generation X prime minister. That he’s an everyman without highbrow or obscure tastes. That he’s without artifice. That he’s patriotic. That his downtime likely looks a whole lot like ours; that the soundtrack to his life is probably also the soundtrack to ours if we grew up on a very heavy diet of Triple M.
When Barack Obama curated his first Spotify playlists in 2015 they were notable for their diversity. Like ScoMo’s list, Obama’s was all about making statements. Obama’s lists flagged that his tastes span the spectrum of mainstream through to niche. He’s accessible but he’s also a quite a bit ivy league. That he’s both listening to hipster American folk while also seducing Michelle with a little Blue Eyes. Nobody needed to count the women or the crooners of colour: Obama’s list was an overtly equal opportunity one.
Among the 88 songs on ScoMo’s Oz list, the only nod to women is Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins. A great song, but a Canadian one. Where are the Australian ladies? Where are The Divinyls? Clare Bowditch? Sia? Of 88 selections was there really only room for one woman?
And while I haven’t done DNA tests on all of the performers, there seemingly isn’t much colour there either. Where is Yothu Yindi? Archie Roach? Christine Anu?
Does the PM’s efforts to convey his Gen X everyman patriotism mean sidelining all the music that wasn’t made by people who look like him?
Should his taste in music even concern us?
Playlists are a tricky beast. Whenever I’ve made mixtapes, I’ve always used songs to tell a story and be subtly revelatory about things I’ve not yet found the words—or chutzpah—to verbalise. I’ve had mixtapes made for me though where, as much as I might like to pretend they’re some kind of cryptex, often they’re just a list of much-loved songs without meaning more complicated than a catchy chorus.
To me, ScoMo’s list looks like a missed opportunity to convey interest in and support for people different to himself. To nod to folks who are younger, browner, and boobier. And in saying that I both recognize it’s just a playlist, while simultaneously knowing it’s also one that the PM deliberately circulated. Which means he’s consciously shown us that his world—that his interests—are perhaps even narrower than we feared.
© Lauren Rosewarne 2019