All three of the main party leaders' speeches this year received a mixed reception, with commentators arguing over the effectiveness of their policies and the smoothness of their presentation. But what of the atmosphere created in the halls in Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow as they entered and left the stage? I called up Eric Clarke, Heather professor of Music at Oxford and a specialist in the psychology of music, to get the verdict on each party's choice of tracks.
Prof. Clarke's verdict: "It seems a slightly peculiar choice. They are in the middle but I thought they'd want to be exerting leverage rather than stuck. Similarly to have a capella music is [odd]. It's not that [unaccompanied] voices are always associated with a religious quality but there is always that tinge to it. Unadorned human voices are powerful in many ways, and there are other examples like football crowds where we hear just human voices with a different technique, but it might backfire a bit with a slightly pious quality about it, which I doubt whether the Lib Dems really want to be stuck with."
Ed Miliband
Tracks: "Green Garden"—Laura Mvula, "I See You"—The Horrors, "Happy"—Pharrell WilliamsDavid Cameron
Tracks: "All These Things That I've Done"—The Killers [entry], "Don't Stop"—Fleetwood MacNick Clegg
Track: A Capella cover of "Stuck in the Middle With You" (sadly, I can find no video of it)Prof. Clarke's verdict: "It seems a slightly peculiar choice. They are in the middle but I thought they'd want to be exerting leverage rather than stuck. Similarly to have a capella music is [odd]. It's not that [unaccompanied] voices are always associated with a religious quality but there is always that tinge to it. Unadorned human voices are powerful in many ways, and there are other examples like football crowds where we hear just human voices with a different technique, but it might backfire a bit with a slightly pious quality about it, which I doubt whether the Lib Dems really want to be stuck with."
