Politically Conservative Classic Rock?

I would love to see what the National Review had to say when these songs first came out. A rather weak story that has novelty value from today's NYT:

New York Times
May 25, 2006
Listening to Rock and Hearing Sounds of Conservatism
By BEN SISARIO

It is a primal moment in rock. In the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," Roger Daltrey sings about gladly fighting in the street for a "new revolution," and with a virtual mushroom cloud of guitar behind him, lets out a fearless cry. But what is the political message?

Classic conservatism, says National Review, the venerable conservative magazine, which in its latest issue offers a list of the "top 50 conservative rock songs of all time." Its No. 1 choice is "Won't Get Fooled Again," which ends with the cynical acceptance that nothing really changes in revolution: "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss."

"It is in my view a counterrevolutionary song," John J. Miller, the author of the article, said in a phone interview yesterday. "It's the notion that revolutions are often failures, like the French Revolution leading to Napoleon. The song is skeptical about revolutionary idealism in the end, and that's a very conservative idea."

Among the other conservative ideas that Mr. Miller found in the songs — most of them hits, many of them classics — are opposition to taxation ("Taxman" by the Beatles, at No. 2) and a preference for abstinence before marriage ("Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys, at No. 5).

Mr. Miller, 36, a political reporter for the magazine, said the list was meant to take issue with the idea that rock's politics are essentially liberal, and to offer an alternative view.

"Any claim that rock is fundamentally revolutionary is just kind of silly," he said. "It's so mainstream that it puts them" — liberals — "in the position of saying that at no time has there ever been a rock song that expressed a sentiment that conservatives can appreciate. And that's just silly. In fact here are 50 of them."

Asked to comment on the list, Dave Marsh, the longtime rock critic and avowed lefty, saw it as a desperate effort by the right to co-opt popular culture. "What happened was, my side won the culture war, in the sense that rock and related music is the dominant musical form, not only in the U.S. but around the world," he said. "Once you lose that battle, you lose the war, and then a different kind of battle begins: the battle over meaning."

The list comes at a time when liberal protest songs are gaining popularity. Public approval of the Bush administration and the Iraq war is at a low, and the patriotic sentiments expressed in some rock and country songs in the aftermath of 9/11 seem to have vanished.

Mr. Miller's criteria were broad: the songs had to be good and express classically conservative ideas "such as skepticism of government or support for traditional values." Mr. Miller posted an item on the magazine's Web site, www.nationalreview.com, late last year and received hundreds of responses, he said.

The choices, accompanied by quotations from the lyrics and pithy remarks by Mr. Miller, can be surprisingly persuasive. (The entire list, with explanations, is at nytimes.com/arts.) Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" (No. 4) is "a tribute to the region that liberals love to loathe," and "Der Kommissar" by After the Fire (No. 24) is praised for criticizing Communist East Germany. A few seem a stretch, like Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55" (No. 38), called "a rocker's objection to the nanny state."

Mr. Miller said that in choosing the songs, "I made an effort for a fair amount of diversity" in the ages of the artists represented. But the list is also overwhelmingly white and male. Among the few black or female artists are Living Colour ("Cult of Personality," No. 18) and Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders ("My City Was Gone," No. 13), Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries ("The Icicle Melts," No. 41) and Tammy Wynette ("Stand by Your Man," N0. 50).

Sean Wilentz, the Princeton history professor, who has also written liner notes for Bob Dylan, said it was no surprise that such ideas can be traced through rock. "Of course there's 'conservatism' in rock 'n' roll," he wrote in an e-mail message. "There's everything in rock 'n' roll, just as there's everything in America."