Some interesting stats for those involved with music from either on or off stage, we here look at which cities in the United States have the most vibrant music scene and are the best for music fans.
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Guest Post by Bobby Owsinski on Music 3.0
If you’re a music fan or musician on the move, you probably want to know what the music scene is like in the various cities across the U.S. ValuePenguin set out to determine the best cities in the country for music fans by compiling 15 different data points (most of which aren’t specified) into 3 different categories. What the survey determined is fairly surprising. Here are the top 20 music cities in 2016, according to the study.
Although the Nashville area at #1 isn’t much of a surprise, Honolulu at #2, Madison at #4, Albany at #6 and Pittsburgh at #9 are. More surprising is the fact that Austin, San Francisco, Portland and Asheville, all with seemingly robust music scenes, didn’t rank higher.
Here are the bottom 20 cities according to the study.
Most of these are small populace areas, but it’s interesting that there are 4 city areas from California on the list.
Also part of the study was a look at the number of radio stations per population density providing discovery of new music. It should be noted that New York and Los Angeles didn’t appear in the top 5, despite have 428 stations between them.
Again this is very surprising since none of the top 5 cities appear in the top 40 best music cities (Champaign ranks #45).
Once again, the methodology of the study wasn’t detailed, so there may be factors that made the list lean one way or another. That said, it’s interesting to bust some myths on what we consider to be strong music towns, and be pleasantly surprised to find others that are thriving. Either way, there are more music fans in more places than you think, so never assume that a city doesn’t have it’s own scene. It may be much more robust than you would ever think.
Check out the website to find your city’s rank here.