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Jam out to the sweet sounds of Barack Obama’s summer playlists


President Obama may have his hands full with the responsibility of governing the most powerful nation on earth, but he still appreciates some hot summer jams.

The White House has officially dropped Barack Obama’s first summer “mix tapes” via Spotify playlists (listen below) — ripe both with classic artists like Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, and John Coltrane as well as contemporary stars like Beyonce, Coldplay, and Florence and the Machine. The lists were “hand-picked” by the president, according to a White House blog post, and feature a wide variety of popular genres.

“Today, the White House joined Spotify — and our inaugural playlist was hand-picked by none other than President Obama,” White House reps said. “When asked to pick of his few of his favorite songs for the summer, the President got serious. He grabbed a pen and paper and drafted up not one, but two separate summer playlists: One for the daytime, and one for the evening.”

We’ll let Obama slide for focusing mostly on classics from our parents’ generation. After all, the 44th President of the United States is a 54 year-old with two children. And yet, he’s still hip enough to profess his love for Justin Timberlake, rising R&B diva Lianne La Havas, and indie rockers Okkervil River. (New York Magazine’s Vulture had a less wholesome approach, dubbing his Night playlist Barack Obama’s summer sex playlist.)

After all, it’s refreshing to think that even the President enjoys making a killer playlist during his time off, even if his Martha’s Vineyard vacation is a little more lush (and newsworthy) than ours. It’s also interesting that Barack Obama (or more likely his aids) is a Spotify fan over, say, Apple Music.

There’s more playlists coming from the White House, so be sure to follow them on Spotify if you want to hear the musical soundtrack of our nation’s leaders.

Be sure to check out all the DT Playlists on our official Digital Trends Spotify page.

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Chris Leo Palermino
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Chris Leo Palermino is a music, tech, business, and culture journalist based between New York and Boston. He also contributes…
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