A poll of America’s musical tastes says the nation cannot stand Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Jay-Z and Lady Gaga, although it has more time for Adele and Beyonce.
Meanwhile, if we had to choose a star to be president, it would be Justin Timberlake. And Republicans have not yet forgotten the political activism of John Lennon and prefer 1950s music above all others, according to the polling carried out by Public Policy Polling.
The organization split its polling into two sections.
Day one of the survey showed widespread support for a variety of music genres among the American public — but pretty solid agreement that Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Chris Brown were no longer in favor. PPP found that only 20% of those asked liked Bieber, against 54% who said they positively did not. The remainder were undecided.
Lady Gaga’s disapproval rating was 29-50, while Chris Brown’s was even worse, 13-57. Jay-Z (25-44) and Rihanna (30-39) also fell into negative territory. But for Bieber, it got worse, as his disapproval crossed party lines. Neither Republicans nor Democrats could stand him, with his ratings standing at 23-54 among Democrats, 17-52 among Republicans and 18-56 among independents.
When asked who they’d most like to see as president if given the choices of Adele, Bieber, Beyonce, Brown, Jay-Z, Timberlake, Gaga or Rihanna, 34% chose Timberlake, with Adele (19%) and Beyonce (14%) also receiving double digits, followed by Jay-Z (9%), Gaga (9%), Bieber (8%), Brown (5%) and Rihanna (2%).
Classical music (77 favorable-13 unfavorable), country (71-23), jazz (71-20), pop (59- 26), R&B (58-27) and rock music (65-26) all received favorable reviews from voters. Respondents were less charitable towards rap (19 favorable-68 unfavorable).
Dubstep received a 14 favorable and 38 unfavorable rating, with 47% not sure. Voters were split in their opinion on “today’s popular music”, with 45% rating it favorable, 37% unfavorable and 19% not sure. When asked their favorite musical genre, 24% chose country, 22% classical, 16% rock and 12% pop, with R&B and jazz each earning 6%, dubstep 2% and rap 1%.
Day two of the poll asked respondents for their opinions of the biggest music stars of the past few decades.
Here, distinct political differences started to emerge. When asked which decade of music they preferred, Republicans voted for the 1950s while Democrats went for the 1960s.
PPP noted: “Voters overall have extremely favorable reviews of Elvis Presley (73-14), The Beatles (76-15), The Rolling Stones (61-26) and the Beach Boys (74-16).”
But they have split favorability perspectives on Michael Jackson (48-44). Kurt Cobain, overall, is unpopular (25-44), and Madonna also falls the wrong side of the divide (36-51).
But there’s a political divide over opinions of Jackson and Madonna.
“There’s a massive 54-point party divide on Michael Jackson – Democrats have a favorable view of him at 59-30, Republicans are flipped and view him unfavorably by a 34-59 margin. The same with Madonna – Democrats narrowly view her favorably (43-41) while Republicans strongly dislike her (21-68),” said PPP.
Paul McCartney is the favorite Beatle (41% chose him), with 29% opting for John Lennon, 12% for Ringo Starr and 11% for George Harrison. But even this vote showed a political divide.
“The party disagreements even extend to favorite Beatle – Democrats choose John over Paul (39-36) while Republicans strongly prefer Paul over John (49-15) – it seems Republicans still haven’t forgiven Lennon for his strong political activism. Overall, Democrats (84-10) like The Beatles more than Republicans (66-24),” said PPP.
Most voters (30%) chose Lennon and McCartney when asked who they thought was the best songwriting partnership of all time.
Just 14% of voters admit they have illegally downloaded music from the internet, while 86% claim to have not.
