Does Donald Trump Like Music?
For most of us, and to varying degrees, music elicits an emotional and even physical reaction. Where a song you enjoy is concerned, that can mean more energy or an improved mood; conversely, if your reaction to music is strong enough, hearing a song you dislike can make you feel stressed or irritated. The way it works is relatively simple. For most of us, music triggers a reward response in our brains; our brains have a similar response to music as we do to receiving a monetary reward. This response is often lessened or nonexistent in individuals who suffer from depression or generalized anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure).
But there are some among us who aren't depressed and have an otherwise normal reward response – except when it comes to music. The condition is called musical anhedonia, and though the cause is unknown, it affects an estimated 3-5% of the population.
And I think Donald Trump might be one of them.
Donald Trump has an opinion on just about everything, especially when it comes to culture. At various points in the past, Trump has offered relationship advice to Robert Pattinson, lobbied Lorne Michaels to have Mitt Romney host "Saturday Night Live," and – my personal favorite – rendered a verdict on Django Unchained:
(I probably shouldn't have to clarify this, but what Trump is saying here is that Django Unchained is racist towards white people and not, you know, the slaves.)
But for all his pop-culture commentary, there is one area in which Trump is largely silent: music. In the rare event that he offers his opinion on a musician, it rarely has anything to do with their work; most often, it's because the musician did or said something in their capacity as a public figure that catches his attention. Take, for example, Donald Trump's Twitter feed.
A search of Trump's account for the word "singer" yielded four results, one of which is in reference to venture capitalist Paul Singer. Of the remaining three, one is a plug for The Apprentice, one is in about rapper Mac Miller's song "Donald Trump," and one is about Cher criticizing Mitt Romney back in 2012. Similarly, the word "musician" only appears in two Trump tweets: one is a manual retweet of some dork who said he admires Trump and not musicians, and the other is Trump calling Neil Young "one of [his] favorite musicians." Unfortunately, that part is delivered as an aside; the central purpose of that particular tweet is to remind us all that famous people visit Trump Tower.
Trump's Twitter feed is, in essence, stream-of-consciousness, and considering the alacrity with which he shares any half-formed thought his mildewed brain can manage to squeeze into a 280-character casing, it seems peculiar that he rarely – if ever – mentions music. Nevertheless, I'll admit that a Twitter search is perhaps an imprecise method by which one might gauge Trump's relationship with music, and I'm nothing if not thorough. To that end, I decided to do some more research.
A story can serve any number of purposes, but as a general rule, good stories are instructive: they often reveal information, albeit indirectly, about the storyteller. Donald Trump likely believes that he tells great stories – the best stories, really beautiful stories, but they don't like to talk about that – which might explain why he's written fourteen (!) books. And he's right: his stories are illuminating; unfortunately, it's for all the wrong reasons. Rather than project Trump's desired image of strength, resourcefulness and balls, these anecdotes reveal who he really is: a small-minded narcissist, pathologically incapable of introspection.
To wit:
"Even in elementary school, I was a very assertive, aggressive kid. In the second grade I actually gave a teacher a black eye - I punched my music teacher because I didn't think he knew anything about music and I almost got expelled. I'm not proud of that, but it's clear evidence that even early on I had a tendency to stand up and make my opinions known in a very forceful way."
-The Art of the Deal, 1987
This (uncorroborated and almost certainly fabricated) tale is ostensibly about music, in that the word "music" is mentioned. But of course, it's really a story about Donald Trump, Self-Made Titan; it's just wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, whistling nonchalantly and hoping you don't notice. So, that story doesn't tell us much about Trump's relationship with music. Here's another one:
"There's so much great music. For me, I'd have to say it's a toss up between Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Elton John. I never get tired of listening to them and probably never will. [...] Any album by any of them is bound to be fantastic.
And besides that, Tony lives in one of my buildings."
-Think Like a Billionaire, 2004
Leaving aside the customary shout-out to one of his own properties, this seems like a genuine window into Trump’s musical tastes. Elton John’s inclusion on this list is somewhat odd, though Washington Post music critic Chris Richards believes that “Trump hears the Elton John songbook on the most superficial level — as a collection of massive hits that convey an almost banal grandeur.” (For what it’s worth, Trump and John appear to be friends or, at the very least, acquaintances.) Trump may well feel the same way about Sinatra and Bennett, though it seems just as likely that he named them because, as an old-school New York guy, he’s supposed to name them.
Donald Trump references music often enough to suggest that he at least understands the concept of music as an experience (or, possibly, he’s simply pretending to understand in order to seem more relatable). He’s previously claimed that he enjoys classical music and that he approaches his business as though he were the conductor of a vast, complex orchestra with thousands of members, which — once again — is more an anecdote about Donald Trump than it is about anything else. (Like every Trump-approved anecdote, it is also complete bullshit.) So the question remains as to whether Trump actually likes music or, like Don Jr., if music is just an occasionally-useful prop that he could otherwise do without.
Donald Trump doesn’t like music the way normal people do, because Donald Trump doesn’t seem to like anything the way normal people do. If we’ve learned anything about Trump in recent years, it’s that he views the world through a transactional lens: in everything, there must be a winner and a loser. If Trump can’t win at something (or at least have the opportunity to win), then it is assumed to be not worth the effort.
Donald Trump cannot enjoy things for what they are. He must consume them, process them, reshape them into things he can use to draw attention to himself. To the extent that Trump derives pleasure from anything at all, it is not the thing itself. It is the part of the thing he can claim credit for or ownership of. It is the byproduct of his self-serving distillation process, the husk of the thing that he can hold up and crow Look what I have. To appreciate music, the listener must be willing to look beyond themselves, to try and see things from someone else’s perspective; at the very least, the listener has to possess the capacity to enjoy something they had no part in making.
So no, Donald Trump doesn’t like music.