Music Is Urbanist & These Are the Top 10 Cities

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Whatever kind of music you listen to, it's almost certain it was developed and produced in a city. The way cities nurture and develop artists is vastly under-discussed, so today we're discussing it! In the guise of a top ten list, of course.

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CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (YouTube music library)

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[GordonSlamsay]

Raythony Nerdtano, internets busiest city nerd

[iLOVEJDD]

Can you you calculate how many potential music careers were destroyed by the Federal-Aid Highway Act?

[ok.castin]

The continued dominance of the NYC jazz scene is astounding. No other style of music evokes the feeling of living in a major urban environment quite like jazz.

[omfgcows]

I really hope you do the logistics of music festivals! It's wild being from Chicago and hearing that people are in traffic for over 6 hours leaving Coachella when I go to Lollapalooza here with 450k+ attendees and am home within 15 minutes via the trains.

[josiahjwhitfield]

i see citynerd is also an enlightened shoegaze enjoyer

[benfelps]

For Detroit you missed Detroit Techno. Extremely influential across the world.

[seanedging]

Something I always find depressing as a Portland resident is how we used to have one of the strongest jazz scenes on the west coast, until we essentially eminent domain-ed it out of existence to build Memorial Colosseum and I-5. Now, the scene is barely hanging on at a handful of venues trying to make it work.

[matthewmeadows]

Pretty shocked that Manchester didn't crack the top-10 with bands like 10cc, The Smiths, Joy Division/New Order, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Happy Mondays, Buzzcocks, Inspiral Carpet, the Bee Gees, The Verve, Courteeners, The 1975. It was also the home to one of the world's greatest rave scenes in the 80s and 90s with Madchester and the Hacienda.

I feel like your methodology is biased towards cities that have produced one big artist without larger scenes: such as Liverpool, Houston and Minneapolis/St Paul, and is missing out on cities that have a real undercurrent of music in all parts of life, such as in Manchester or New Orleans. You feel music in your bones in Manchester when you walk the streets in a way you simply don't in Houston.

[nathanbutler]

Was sitting at my desk at work and telepathically felt that CN posted

[sunnys]

Something that you didn't outright say but is implied is how affordable a city is. Death Cab for Cutie is one of my favorite bands; and in the bands early days they shared a house just outside of Seattle in Bellingham(where they would record and rehearse their early music). I highlight this since Seattle home prices have priced many that could be musicians/artists from establishing social networks that'll help them grow and have a safe space to create their art.

[cutieteal]

Did not did not expect the crossover between the Shoegaze and urbanism communities to be this strong lol.

[Patrick_from_Youtube]

Detroit not only gave rise to blues, RnB, and Motown, but also techno (Carl Craig) and early punk (band called Death). Sadly we also gave rise to Kid Rock but nonetheless, the city as a hub of music culture is super underrated.

[JKenjiLopezAlt]

My favorite band is the band that plays with Billy Joel, and my favorite song is, we didn’t start the fire. Is my opinion OK? 😂

[RudeMyDude]

Thank you for this one, honestly, music and art influence should be considered when giving points to a city, rather than only caring about having a good amount of bike lanes and bus times.

[gingermany]

Our local NPR station had a segment last week on how Austin came up with the "Live Music Capital of the World" moniker. Spoiler, it happened probably exactly like you imagine with a boring council resolution. 😅

[guitarkharma]

I’m so glad that Austin wasn’t on this list. As a musician who lived and worked in the city for years, I can confirm, the music scene down there is a total wasteland of mediocre blues musicians and google tech bros who play guitar in their spare time as their bands open for prog rock puppet shows.

[Shane_Shaney]

It’s worth noting that Detroit is the birthplace of techno and electronic music. This fact has been largely overlooked by the US mainstream media; however, Detroit techno inspired much of the world’s techno DJs and shaped the sound of clubs worldwide. If you’re into techno, check out the Movement Music Festival held on Memorial Day weekend each year in Detroit. It has quite the international following.

[oliphant]

Very Anglo-centric (no wonder in view of the sources used). Stopped listening after the list. Also don't really like the dig "obscure local music in whatever local language".
First video from this channel I didn't like.

[danmford]

Just a quick shout to DC. One of the four most important jazz cities in the early- to mid-1900s, along with New Orleans, Chicago, and NY. Birthplace and career starter for Duke Ellington, maybe the greatest jazzist of his era. Solid rock scene--the Mamas and Papas started in the area. Also the national center for punk music, especially hardcore punk, through the 70s and 80s. And a starting ground for tons of indie bands and artists from the 70s through 90s, including Dave Grohl. Strong hip hop scene, too, though not at the level of others on the list

[watchthis]

No mention of Kingston, Jamaica? So many influential Reggae acts that are popular from the Netherlands, to Brazil, to Japan, to the U.S. and Kingston artists influenced the development of hip-hop (DJ Kool Herc, godfather of hip-hop) Ska, and electronic music. Dancehall is another genre from Kingston that is very popular in New York, London and around the world, and influenced dubstep and other worldwide genres. Idk exactly how you did your math, but I think it could've deserved an honorable mention, esp considering New York and London we're you're top 1 and 2. Modern pop music would be nothing without Jamacian party culture