Best Cities for Music Fans in 2016

When it comes to seeing a favorite band perform live, people will do whatever it takes — even travel across the country — to attend. Since music is an important part of many people's lives, ValuePenguin set out to determine the best cities in the US for music fans using 15 data points, grouped into three categories. Below are the results, as well as a detailed methodology on why they were included.

Best cities for music fans

Here's how 200 metropolitan statistical areas with qualifying data stacked up in three categories. "The band" indicates how well the area supports musicians, "The crowd" indicates the same for fans (including how many bars and venues are open in the area), and "The intangibles" ranks things like weather (for outdoor concerts), number of music schools and bar closing times. In all of the rankings below, a lower number is better.

Radio has helped cultivate the music scene for years, and access to a wide variety of stations remains important for a city. New York and Los Angeles dominate in sheer numbers, with 428 radio stations between them. The list looks a lot different, though, when a city's population is taken into account.

Radio stations

Best cities

Worst cities

The next great album has to be recorded somewhere. According to the US Census Bureau, there are 1,693 sound recording studios in the country. Los Angeles (second in this data point when population is taken into account) has 366 of them.

Recording studios

Best cities

Worst cities

Many musicians go to school to hone their craft. Using the US Census Bureau, ValuePenguin looked at the percentage of people with a visual or performing arts degree in each city. This might not lead to more musicians in a city, but it's likely to produce a population with an appreciation for a quality music scene.

Music degrees

Best cities

Worst cities

Data takeaways

Musicians, professional or aspiring, buy records too.

How people consume music has changed — 60 of the cities in the study don't have a single record store — but musicians still need places to stock up on equipment or add to their archives.

The laws of supply and demand also appear to apply to the music industry. Based on the data, a city with fewer working musicians is likely to pay them a higher hourly wage.

Methodology

To determine the best cities for music fans, 15 data points from 14 reputable sources were broken down into three categories, detailed below. Not all of the categories were created equally: Bands, musicians and where they play were given more weight than other city-specific data tied to consuming music.

For numbers 9 and 14 below, multiple sources were aggregated to produce the data point. If a city appeared on one of these "best of" lists, they were given a single point. All of this was then totaled to come up with the rankings. Below, each statistic is broken down, and its origin is given. The numbers 1 to 3 next to each category (in parentheses) indicates the category's and stat's weighting (unlike the lists above, a higher number is greater, representing a higher weight).

Expert take

Mella Barnes is a session singer, songwriter and producer in Nashville, Tennessee.

1. The way people consume music has changed rapidly in the past 10 years. How has music fandom changed along with it?

Today fandom is more about the "discovery" of music. People love to say to their friends, "Hey, I found this new artist!" Now, whether or not they financially support said artist is another story. But I think the concept of '"finding" a new artist is very important in today's streaming culture.

2. How important is local radio in creating a following for a band?

Local radio is a decent option, but the thing about local radio is, if people aren't listening right then during that song, they won't know about you. That's why artists have to explode their social media. Then, a fan browsing the Internet can come across your music at any time. On a scale of one to 10, I would put radio at maybe a five in terms of importance.

3. Which aspects of music venues make them fun or exciting to play?

I don't play live often, since I'm a session singer, but what's always made a venue fun was the atmosphere it created. Venues start to get a reputation for being one way or another — loud, boring, rowdy, fun — and the audience tends to follow suit with whatever they've heard about it. Venues can control their image to a certain extent, so making it a place of creativity and respect is what's best for the artists.

4. Who are some of the best under-the-radar live bands playing currently?

I just saw a band called Lavender Country in Inglewood. They're a little difficult to track down online but worth it to do the search. Also, if you want to see amazing, talented musicians, walk down the street here in Nashville! There is an artist on every corner on Broadway Street downtown, and I've yet to hear a bad one. You would think there would be a lot of competition, but everyone seems supportive of one another.

Eric Gilbert is the cofounder of Treefort Music Fest and Duck Club Presents in Boise, Idaho.

1. The way people consume music has changed rapidly in the past 10 years. How has music fandom changed along with it?

It seems to me that there's less of a concentration of fandom. Thanks to technology, people listen to a much larger catalog of music, and tastes are less concentrated on certain artists or certain genres. And with touring becoming more common than ever, for bands of all sizes, consumers get to benefit from a growing pool of concert options.

2. How important is local radio in creating a following for a band?

The relationship to radio and a band's following has definitely shifted over the years, but Radio Boise KRBX 89.9 FM going on air in 2011 had a profound effect on the local music scene. For the first time in decades, local, regional and national indie artists of all genres started getting regular airtime. This felt like a big shift for someone on the ground floor of that scene. Overnight, aspiring local bands suddenly had a platform by which their music could be featured, and it inspired a rejuvenated wave of activity. It provided a focal point for the community.

3. Which aspects of music venues make them fun and exciting to play?

I like venues that provide intimacy with an artist and those in attendance. I love the feel of smaller shows and the energy created when a room is packed and the audience is almost spilling on top of the band. Thus, I prefer stages that aren't too high and rooms that aren't too big. Venues with good sound and lights, and the ability to mix in fog and haze, also make for an exciting show to happen.

4. Who are some of the best under-the-radar live bands playing currently?

Here are some of my favorite shows I've seen in Boise over the last couple of years: Jonathan Richman, Whitney, Budos Band, Built to Spill, Wooden Indian Burial Ground, Thick Business, Yonatan Gat, Ancient Psychic, Tortoise, Diarrhea Planet, Music Band, Shabazz Palaces, Poliça, Rubblebucket, Delicate Steve, Magic Sword, Wild Ones, K.Flay, Mr. Gnome, Holiday Friends, Lucy Dacus, Cy Dune, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Beach Slang, Love As Laughter, Disco Doom, Here We Go Magic, The Thermals, Quiet Life, AU, Like A Villain, Dustin Wong, Paper Gates, Deerhoof, Chanti Darling, The Suffers, Dan Deacon, Clarke and the Himselfs, Sly Moon Sutra, Hollow Wood, Leafraker, Downtown Boys, Screaming Females, Baby in Vain, Wimps, Dark Swallows, Nobunny, Cool Ghouls, The Shivas, Thee Oh Sees, Beat Connection ... to name a few.