Hopefully you, as a dutiful American, tuned into the State of The Union speech last night. Many wondered what would be on the docket for President Obama as he addressed a Congress no longer under the Democratic party's control. Many subjects came up: Terrorism, opening up to economic deals with Cuba, foreign policy regarding ISIS. One theme ran more prevalent than any other: The state of the American middle class and helping those in the lower class into the income class above it.
Part of that was his claim that the United States was the only "advanced" country left in the world without mandated paid sick leave (Canada and Japan don't either, but whatever). Part of it was challenging Republicans to raise a family on minimum wage (equivalent to $15,000 a year). Part of it was addressing the struggle to bring jobs back from competitors such as China.
Needless to say, the middle class means a lot to Obama. Here's a brief selection of that income bracket featured in music...maybe not as a soundtrack to his goals, based on some of the messages expressed.
Middle Class Rut
It'd be tough to classify Sacramento rock band Middle Class Rut as overtly political—there's no doubt general unhappiness pervades the music...but that's rather typical of the post-grunge scene that Rut seems to take most of its influence from. The band's standout single "Aunt Betty" certainly seems to contain some sort of hidden agenda—who is the titular Aunt and what is she supposed to represent? We may be over thinking this one—but the band rarely goes red or blue. The idea of the "middle class rut" is similar to the midlife crisis, where on realizes their place in life is probably set unless dramatic action is taken. President Obama probably doesn't much care right now about that concept—he's more driven by the urge to get those in poverty and relative dependency out of that rut before he worries about those in the middle jumping up.
The Middle Class
Now this is the kind of political music we were looking for. The Middle Class, like many of the best hardcore bands of the time, was a short-lived punk act coming out of the Los Angeles area during the late '70s/early '80s. In fact, the band is cited by experts as being responsible for THE first hardcore record released from that era. Although the band—featuring three of the Atta brothers—released one official full-length during 1982, it will always be best appreciated for that first 7", an EP titled Out of Vogue that rammed through four tracks in less than five minutes. Say what you will about the quality of the music, but all the Black Flag/Dead Kennedys/X and other legendary hardcore bands begin here.
Middle Class White Boy by Mose Allison
Before there was Randy Newman or Elvis Costello, Mose Allison was the snarkiest thing on the radio. The jazz pianist had made a career of mocking others ("Your Mind Is On Vacation") and his own blues ("Meet Me At No Special Place"), and one topic he wasn't afraid to touch upon was his status as a white man playing the blues ("Ever Since I Stole The Blues"). He revisited the theme with his 1982 album Middle Class White Boy, which included his classic "Hello There, Universe" and the title track, which mocks white middle-class individuals for their attempts at rebellion against the relative comfort in which they live.
#MiddleClassProtestSongs
Mose Allison wasn't the first to realize the humorous potential of the middle class and he was far from the last. Back in the era when hash-tagging was just coming into vogue, one of the first classic examples was #MiddleClassProtestSongs, which challenged Twitter users to convert actual protest songs into satirical anthems for those who were relatively well-off. Some great examples: "Where Have All The Servants Gone?" (from "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?"), "If I Had A Hummer" (from the working-class classic "If I Had A Hammer"), "Escrowin' In The Wind" (from Bob Dylan's classic "Blowin' In The Wind") and one from across the pond, "Glyndebourne in The USA," a reference to a famous opera house in the UK and Bruce Springsteen.
American Middle Class by Angaleena Presley
The country music genre was dominated, critically at least, by performers from Tennessee. Sturgill Simpson was universally acclaimed and Angaleena Presley, a member of the excellent Pistol Annies trio, deserved more credit for her personal debut, American Middle Class. She's the one performer on this list who might make the world think twice about what's considered "middle class" and those who dwell in it. She speaks off her father, who worked in his home state's booming coal industry as a miner, and how that hardly translated to a relaxed lifestyle for the family. They got by, sometimes just barely however. If we had to guess, we'd assume the Presleys are just the sort of people that Obama is looking to help out.
