Entertainment

REVEALED: America’s music taste, broken down state by state

Rachel Stoltzfoos Staff Reporter
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Music and tech blogger Paul Lamere posted a startling map yesterday displaying every state’s musical guilty pleasure — giving you one more reason to be concerned about the future of America.

If we can’t get something as simple as musical taste right, how are we supposed to solve real problems like the national debt, the rise of China and those terrible Common Core worksheets?

“It is pretty clear that people in different part of the US listen to different kinds of music,” Lamere wrote in his blog. “These regionalisms can be used to help recommend music for people when you otherwise might not know anything about their music taste.” Right. They can also be used to justify your vague disdain for almost everyone.

Lamere assigned each state a signature artist by ranking the top 100 artists listened to in a given state, and then figuring out which one falls furthest in a U.S. ranking. So for example, while most Americans have no idea who Ginger Kwan is and don’t listen to him at all (ranked at 12,062), Sarah Palin and the 5 other people who listen to music in Alaska tend to be fans (at 33). Makes sense since he’s from Hong Kong, which is basically in Alaska’s backyard.

distinctive_artist_map1

His brilliant map solves a lot of questions: Why are people in Arizona angry? Why is Illinois so depressing? What’s with Vermont and heroin?

It also restates the obvious. Alabama loves the civil war and will never accept that the South lost. Texas is about country music. People in Nevada are hot and bothered and they’re into creepy girl-on-girl water fights/strangling.

Other questions remain: who is J Boog? Kurt Vile? Alan Jackson? Also, aren’t the Dead dead?

Winning: Florida, Tennessee and Nebraska.

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