‘Bieber fever': Music playlists of world elite exposed
Vice President JD Vance is a big fan of the Backstreet Boys' 'I Want It That Way.'
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt gets pumped up with Beyonce's 'Run the World (Girls)' — and there's one very prominent politician who loves Nelly's 'Hot In Herre.'
That's all according to the Panama Playlists — a site that quietly went live Wednesday and claims to reveal the private music tastes of a slew of public figures.
'I found the real Spotify accounts of celebrities, politicians, and journalists.
'Many use their real names. With a little sleuthing, I could say with near-certainty: yep, this is them,' the anonymous eavesdropper wrote.
'We've been scraping their accounts since summer 2024.
'Playlists, live listening feed, everything. I know what songs they played, when, and how many times,' they wrote, also stating the project has not affiliation with company 'Spotify.'
The anonymous researcher told The Post that they became convinced in the authenticity of each account as the months of monitoring went on.
Graphics of each person were mocked to resemble Spotify's 'This Is…' playlist category. Picture: panamaplaylists.com
'I gained confidence in each person by looking at lots of signals. An example is Pam Bondi. Her longtime partner is John Wakefield, and her profile has an old playlist called 'john' and an old shared playlist with a user named 'John Wakefield,' so that gives me a lot of confidence it is her account.'
'Karoline Leavitt's profile has a playlist called 'Baby Shower,' and she had a baby a month after the playlist was made,' the owner of the website told The Post, emphasising they only collected publicly available information.
It all seems to be a bit of summer fun, that reveals the questionable, ironic and sometimes too-on-the-nose music choices of America's rich and powerful.
'Heard of the Panama Papers? That exposed offshore bank accounts. This is about onshore vibes,' the site says.
Here is a sample of what 'Panama Playlists' found.
Vice President JD Vance is a fan of the songs 'I Want It That Way' by the Backstreet Boys and 'One Time' by Justin Bieber, both of which appear on his oft-listened to 'Making Dinner' playlist.
The millennial veep also appears to be a fan of pop-punk, with several songs from the early aughts favourite Death Cab for Cutie appearing on his playlist 'Gold On The Ceiling.'
On that playlist, Vance shows off an eclectic taste in tunes, selecting songs 'Fade Into You' by Mazzy Star, 'Pepper,' by Butthole Surfers, 'Signs' by band Tesla, and 'Take a Walk' from Passion Pit.
FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried has three public playlists — 'rap' 'soft' and 'loud' — which feature plenty of Eminem, also Death Cab for Cutie, and song 'Young Dumb, Broke' from Khalid.
The site claims to expose the music taste and habits of some of the world elite. Picture: panamaplaylists.com
Karoline Leavitt had the songs 'Run the World (Girls)' by Beyonce and 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' from Cyndi Lauper on her 'Baby Shower' playlist.
Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's liked tracks on his Pandora account include 'Parachutes' from the movie 'Air Force One' and the 'Finding Nemo/Nemo Egg' theme performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
He's also into 'One Night Love Affair' by Bryan Adams and 'May It Be' by Enya.
Social media gadfly Taylor Lorenz's public playlists include 'Older Millenial College Rager TBT' and 'Breakup Songs' —- but her 'Favs' include tracks 'Romeo and Juliet' from Dire Straits and 'You Can Get It If You Really Want' from reggae legend Jimmy Cliff.
Pam Bondi prefers the more upbeat tracks on her playlist named 'Pam' — including Nelly's immortal jam 'Hot In Herre,' 'Hands to Myself' by Selena Gomez, and 'Fix My Eyes' from band For King & Country.'
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's 'My Shazam Tracks' — meaning songs he likely looked up — include the well-known 'Get Ur Freak On' by Missy Elliott, 'Make Me Feel Your Love,' by Adele, and 'Vivir Mi Vida' from Marc Anthony.
'We've been scraping their accounts since summer 2024.' Picture: Getty
Coinsbase CEO Brian Armstrong has a playlist called 'Repeat' that is the song 'Long Way Home' by Gareth Emery saved 60 times.
And Florida Governer Ron DeSantis is a major classic rock fan with his only public playlist featuring iconic songs 'Ring of Fire' by Johnny Cash, 'Southern Nights' from the rhinestone cowboy Glen Campbell, and The Charlie Daniels Band's 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia.'
This story first appeared in the New York Post and was republished with permission.
Originally published as 'Bieber fever': Music playlists of world elite exposed
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
How synaesthesia has shaped the music world for generations
For most of us, music is mainly a feast for our ears. But people with synaesthesia experience music with more than their sense of hearing. Some see musical harmony in vivid colours, others have visceral physical reactions such as pins and needles. Some even experience music in textures like jelly or cloth. For people with synaesthesia, a neurological condition where stimuli can be experienced by multiple senses, music can invoke something profound or disruptive. "The main thing about synaesthesia is that it is an added sense that your brain uses to interpret whatever information is going on around your body," says Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe, ABC Classic's Passenger presenter and synaesthete. It's not just seeing colours when hearing sounds. "The permutation is almost endless," Kabanyana Kanyandekwe says. We talk to musicians who are living and working with synaesthesia, its upsides and downsides and how musicians have harnessed this brain quirk for generations. The most well-known form of synaesthesia in the music world is chromesthesia: seeing sounds as colours and patterns. French composer Olivier Messiaen associated specific chords with vivid colours, and jazz legend Duke Ellington experienced orchestral textures in shifting shades of light and fabric. Jessica Cottis, Canberra Symphony Orchestra's artistic director, also sees instrument groups as colours. "The woodwinds are bright blue and the brass section is spring green," Cottis says. Meanwhile, "the string section is always a deep red." But no two experiences are alike. Composers Rimsky-Korsakov and Scriabin assigned different colour-charts to musical key signatures. Kabanyana Kanyandekwe found out her experience was different when she sat with another synaesthete at university. "I said this chord was blue, and they said it was yellow," she recalls. It's common for people to experience a few forms of synaesthesia, Kabanyana Kanyandekwe says. Although she primarily experiences chromesthesia, some sounds can also give her physical sensations. Sometimes music makes her feel lighter than air; other times a squatting weight. This physical reaction to music can impact her concert-going experience. "My synaesthesia also makes me experience the concept of time as a massive spiral in space," Kabanyana Kanyandekwe says. "Playing or listening to music is the only thing that helps me process the movement of time in a linear fashion." Kabanyana Kanyandekwe says that synaesthesia is considered a form of neurodiversity. "Neurodiversity is an umbrella term that covers many different conditions and the ways the brain works," she says. Kabanyana Kanyandekwe believes synaesthesia is common in young children, but the experience can fade as people get older. "As people's brains work out what information is important, most shave off the extra [sensory] information," she says. Kabanyana Kanyandekwe describes: "Synaesthesia may interfere or impact people's understanding of music, their ability to appreciate music, even capacity to sit and listen to music." Although most people think of synaesthesia as a harmless party trick, for some it can be profound or disruptive. Initiatives like providing sonic stories which describe what sounds people will hear during a concert can help synaesthetes and people with other forms of neurodiversity to make decisions to manage their experience. "[In some concerts], I wear certain earplugs that help me attenuate the sound in a way that doesn't harm me and allow me to appreciate the music," Kabanyana Kanyandekwe shares. Being able to choose where to sit is another way for people with synaesthesia to enjoy concerts. Some like to be seated right at the front to increase the intensity of their experience. Others prefer to sit at the back so they can step out if the music gets overwhelming. The musical potential of synaesthesia has long been explored by composers such as Messiaen and Scriabin, among others. Messiaen's Couleurs de la Cité Céleste (Colours Of The Celestial City) is a depiction of a multi-coloured, heavenly city based on his experience of synaesthesia. Cottis is using her gift in a more practical way: to help her rehearse with the orchestra. She experiences harmony as "mists of colour that are always in flux". "If I'm rehearsing and [the orchestra] is out of tune, the colours become less clear in my mind in addition to hearing it," Cottis says. "Having these two senses fused can help me to understand what's happening very quickly." In 1915, Scriabin invented a musical instrument called the "Clavier à lumières": a keyboard which could project coloured lights based on the composer's specifications. Each colour was assigned to different notes of the scale, for instance C is red and D is yellow. The instrument was invented for the performance of his Prometheus: The Poem Of Fire. Researchers have cast doubt on whether Scriabin's musical colour system was an expression of synaesthesia or something he created for pure aesthetic value. But associating music and colours isn't confined to composers with synaesthesia. Scriabin's instrument invention remains one of the earliest attempts to create an immersive concert experience. An Australian performance artist and researcher who has also used the multi-sensory nature of synaesthesia is Jocelyn Ho. The Synaesthesia Playground project, which Ho ran in 2016 and 2017, brought together musicians, computer scientists, visual artists, and fashion designers to create an immersive and interactive concert. "This project was based on my research in how we experience music with our bodies, such as spine-tingles and goosebumps," Ho says. One of the ways Ho made these physical reactions visual was by wearing a fibre-optic dress that pulsed in response to what was going on inside her body. "People could see when my heartrate quickened because I might be feeling a bit stressed, for instance" Ho says. "It stripped off my performer's mask because they could see my vulnerability." What musicians who live or work with synaesthesia show is that music is more than a feast for our ears but a full-body experience. And you don't necessarily have to live with synaesthesia to experience a taste of it. Ho says: "In musical memory, for instance, all of these senses such as sight, sound, smell and touch are integrated, they are not separated."
ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Did Donald Trump just give China a major advantage on AI?
Last month, the Trump administration quietly reversed one of its own policies by lifting a ban on US tech giant Nvidia's H20 microchip exports to China. For anyone who has followed Donald Trump's erratic record on trade, another U-turn might not sound like a notable development. But this time, the stakes are much higher because these microchips are critical to powering the next generation of artificial intelligence. Whichever country dominates microchip production will likely lead the global AI race, with massive implications for military strategy and economic output. For nearly three years, the US has tried to keep these powerful chips out of China's hands. Now, by reopening the door, has Mr Trump handed Beijing a major advantage on AI? We spoke to three experts to explain how we got here. Back in April, the Trump administration banned H20 microchip exports to China, toughening restrictions put in place by the Biden administration. It has since reversed that decision. According to Jason Van Der Schyff, a fellow at Australian Strategic Policy Institute's technology and security program, this backflip may be in response to the booming black market demand for high-powered US chips in China. "Over a billion dollars worth of restricted chips were smuggled into China in just a few months," he said. "The reversal may be a pivot by the administration, recognising if you don't offer a legal channel for the slightly degraded chips, buyers will simply go around you." Professor Shahriar Akter, who specialises in the study of advanced analytics and AI at the University of Wollongong said this move seems to follow "a philosophy in Silicon Valley that if you sell more" it will pour more back into "your research and development". Associate Professor in Information Systems at Curtin University, Mohammad Hossain, suggested the Trump administration is trying to kill two birds with one stone. The US is trying to maintain leverage in a broader geopolitical trade-off involving China's critical exports, rare earth elements, while "keeping China dependent on US technology", he said. Nvidia is the tech giant behind these highly sought after microchips and it is led by CEO Jensen Huang who is the ninth-richest man in the world. The H20 is a step-down from Nvidia's top-tier chips (H100 and B200) and was specifically designed to comply with US export restrictions while catering to the Chinese market. "Basically, [H100 and B200 chips] can do things much faster than the H20," Mr Van Der Schyff said. "If we consider how quickly AI is moving any impediment that could be brought to time more than anything is going to maintain that US strategic advantage." While the H20 is less powerful, Mr Van Der Schyff warns that "these aren't toys … even slightly downgraded chips still enable model training at scale". "If you're concerned about national security, letting an adversary access chips that are only one rung down the ladder still poses a strategic risk." While the US hopes to stall China's progress in artificial intelligence, experts warn this strategy may have the opposite effect. China's push to dominate AI is already underway and restricting exports to only H20 chips incentivises them to accelerate domestic developments. "At present in the world, 50 per cent of AI researchers are being produced by China alone," Dr Akter said. Chinese tech giants like Huawei and Biren Technology have been ramping up their own AI accelerators. "Huawei's chips are already being deployed in major training clusters," Mr Van Der Schyff said. Still, China's domestic developments trail behind industry leaders like Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung when it comes to cutting-edge manufacturing. "There isn't necessarily a danger that China catches up overnight but these restrictions do however give Beijing a clear incentive to sort of go all in on industrial policy for their own semiconductors to accelerate domestic progress," Mr Van Der Schyff said. "We've seen this play out previously with 5G and also with aviation." All three experts cautioned that it's difficult to gauge China's true AI capabilities. "Given the closed nature of China's systems and their propensity to not always tell us the truth", it's unclear how much China's artificial intelligence has developed, Mr Van Der Schyff said. Dr Akter used an analogy to explain the uncertainty: "There are two types of AI technologies", one is called glass box and the other is called black box. "Glass box technology is basically explainable AI, which is open source and we can explain where data is coming from and how it is being used to develop AI models and what would be the outcome." Whereas, black box technology is the opposite, we cannot trace back to the source of the data and we cannot tell what models have been used. That opacity makes it difficult for the rest of the world to assess whether Beijing is playing catch-up or quietly pulling ahead. The country that has the upper hand in microchip production will likely lead the global AI race and that has significant repercussions, experts said. "The country that dominates compute will dominate AI, and AI will shape everything from military planning to economic productivity."
ABC News
10 hours ago
- ABC News
Doctor Jeep
Loading Doctor Jeep explores dance music from a global lens, and you'll hear everything from baile funk and dancehall,to UKG, drum & bass, polyrhythmic techno and electro in his sets. You can catch him regularly on the Rinse FM airwaves, and he's performed at some of the biggest clubs and festivals in the world, including Bonnaroo, EDC, and Waking on releases with record labels TraTraTrax and SPE:C, Doctor Jeep dropped his Assassino EP on KAIZEN earlier this year – a three tracker that pays homage to his Latin American roots while showcasing his genre-bending club sound. Check out the title track here:Lock in 'cos we're being treated to a whole bunch of new and unreleased sounds from the Brazillian-American artist as he joins us in the studio on the Australian leg of his world tour.
