Barack Obama’s victory in this year’s presidential election inspired unprecedented euphoria and optimism among many Americans young and old. The celebration in Seattle Tuesday night was like a mixture of Dems winning the lottery, the World Series, and an unlimited bar tab for life. All this mad joy for a… politician? Unfuckingbelievable. Those who were reveling in the streets Nov. 4, 2008 will be telling their grandchildren about it, should we be fortunate enough to have a livable climate that long into the future.

By contrast, the new CD Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement (released by Hidden Beach Recordings and sanctioned by Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee) will mostly inspire yawns. It’s like 17 helpings of warm milk, with only Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” igniting the sort of excitement Senator Obama managed to generate during his excellently run campaign. Stevie’s song—one of the greatest ever to bear the Motown imprint and one that could make even John McCain sashay saucily—stands out, well, like Obama amid a conference room full of Palins.

The bulk of Yes We Can consists of defanged, soft-focused R&B, mildly “uplifting” pop that brings me way down, and (to be undiplomatic) nutless rock that puts me in the mood to veto more than to vote. Jebus, these are some stultifying, stilted songs, unworthy of buttressing the Obama and MLK speech snippets that sporadically accompany the music. There’s something seriously awry when Jackson effin’ Browne has one of the most rockin’ tracks (“Looking East”) on a CD in 2008.

I realize that it’s predictable for a political machine at Obama’s level to err on the, um, conservative side with regard to cultural matters, but one would think he’d want something a little more adventurous to represent his administration. John Mayer, Lionel Richie, Dave Stewart, John Legend (covering U2’s “Pride [In the Name of Love]”), Jill Scott. Sheryl Crow, Keb’ Mo’, and some other blandness merchants do not signify a bold step into the future, but rather tepid backtracking to the past.

If I were curating the compilation, I would’ve asked these American artists to contribute:

Flying Lotus
Madlib
Public Enemy
Andre 3000
Terry Riley
RZA
Lightning Bolt
George Clinton (or just grab Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove”)
Black Dice
Animal Collective
LCD Soundsystem
MF Doom
Beans
El-P
David Byrne
Girl Talk
Brightblack Morning Light
Steinski
Matmos
NOMO
Themselves/Doseone

These are the sorts of musicians who symbolize change to me—or who simply have the potential to catalyze large blocks of people to face the future and solve problems or to provoke innovative thought.