page_title: Election Special
section_title: Music and themes
hierarchical_section_title: Election Special / Music and themes
context_page_description: Election Special is the 2012 fifteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ry Cooder. After his 2011 album Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, Cooder continued writing topical and storyline-inspired songs. Displeased with the Republican Party and its financial supporters, he also wanted to write an album that would address listeners during the United States presidential election of 2012, which he believed to be a critical event in the country's history. Election Special was recorded mostly at Drive-By Studios in North Hollywood and produced by Cooder.
  Election Special is an American roots and blues rock album of protest songs with music characterized by upbeat melodies, simple instrumentation, and sparse arrangements. Cooder played all of the instruments, including bass, guitar, and mandolin, with the exception of drums by his son Joachim. A deeply political album, it expands on the socio-political musings and current event topics of Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down with forthright, satirical lyrics and song-form vignettes.
context_section_description: Election Special is an American roots and blues rock album of protest songs. It is characterized by upbeat melodies, simple instrumentation, and swinging, sparse arrangements. Music journalist Robin Denselow describes Election Special as "musically ... very much a DIY album," while Matt Snow of Mojo compares Cooder to Tom Waits as a "gloves-off DIY soundscapist in wood, steel, and string." The album's music also incorporates folk, roots rock, and, most prominently, blues styles. Music writers compare the album's mix of folk and blues styles to Cooder's earlier, distinguishing albums. Zeth Lundy of the Boston Phoenix characterizes Cooder as a "Keith Richards/Woody Guthrie hybrid" on Election Special.
  The deeply political album expands on the socio-political musings of Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. Cooder's forthright lyrics exhibit satire, dark humor, and bitter, apprehensive feelings about current events, including Guantanamo Bay, the Occupy movement, the shooting of Trayvon Martin, Barack Obama's plight as US President, and the election of 2012. He addresses these topics through song-form vignettes, which express his anti-Republican party perspective. Cooder's songwriting also reappropriates lyrics from older musical sources, including protest songs, broadside ballads, and country blues. Nick Coleman of The Independent describes it as "heartfelt and unencumbered with musicological pedantry", while the newspaper's Andy Gill comments that Cooder "employs demotic" language and "variations of the blues ... to carry his broadsides." Jeff Schwager of PopMatters cites Robert Johnson and Woody Guthrie as influences on Cooder's songcraft for the album.
  Music writers characterize Cooder's sentiments and political stance on the album as liberal and populist. Joseph Jon Lanthier of Slant Magazine observes "liberal convictions" and a "bleeding heart" in his lyrics, which he says express "reductive sympathy for President Obama and suspicions that fat cats are perverting the Bill of Rights". Music essayist Robert Christgau writes that Cooder "reappl[ies] the Popular Front mindset to the messy compromises of electoral politics, and all the must-hears illuminate the 2012 presidential election rather than merely referencing it". Bud Scoppa of Uncut calls the album "an impassioned screed against the dumbing down of America" and comments that Cooder eschews conventional "preaching" for "three-dimensional characters whose beliefs and opinions span the political spectrum of America in 2012." Allmusic's Thom Jurek cites it as "the most overtly political album of Cooder's career" to due its "soapbox style" and feels that the songs "express what he considers to be, as both an artist and a pissed-off citizen, the high-stakes historical gamble of the 2012 presidential and congressional contest."
caption: Cooder's lyrics reflected populist ideals and sentiments. (The Fourth Estate pictured)
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