Here’s something interesting. This came up on Reddit a week or so ago and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Someone (or something) made a graph of the most successful musicians of the past year, and they compared it with the most successful acts in New York. New York being, of course, the only music scene that matters. All New Yorkers from SoHo to Shaolin are American-Apparel-and-shutter-shades-wearin’, social-media-expertin’, indie-rock-listenin’, designer-bud-smokin’, iPhone-sportin’ alternativo cool kids who know what the fuck is up with music. The rest of the world is, by contrast, made up of salt-shakin’, behind-your-back-speakin’, record-criticizin’ cock-blockin’, in-the-club-costume-jewelry-wearin’, valet-parked-Lexus-rentin’, undercover, star-struck, no-game-havin’, fake-Versace-shirt-wearin’, motel-hell-livin’, false-Muslim-bein’, jungle-fever-havin’, pork-eatin’ demon people, whose purpose on life is to bring you down.
What struck me is that New Yorkers are, according to the chart, totally in-line with what the consensus tells us is the biggest and best indie acts. Also, the public-at-large have surprisingly good taste, and it’s not as out-of-line with good taste as us latte-sippin’, health-care-havin’ liberal elites may believe. Alright, they listen to Britney Spears and none of us give a shit about her anymore, but they paid attention to Grizzly Bear and Phoenix too. Hell, “the masses” even dug Animal Collective and La Roux. And I had no idea that The Lonely Island had such a significant amount of legitimate success. Well done – you’ll be able to buy a boat of your own some day.
Another surprise: Muse was MASSIVE among the peasantry and I’ve never heard of them. The aristocracy loved Passion Pit and Dirty Projectors and the rest of the world didn’t care about them, which is fine with me cos both of those acts – in my opinion as a music journalist – suck bags of dicks.
Anyway, it’s an interesting empirical sum-up of what folks actually listened to this year, when they listened to it, how much, and with a dash of classism on top. Interesting stuff. The actual chart is huge and detailed, so if you want to take a closer look I recommend downloading the PDF which you can find here. While you peruse it, here’s what I’ve been listening to all year.
Kool Keith – “Intro (from ‘Black Elvis’)”
Kid Cudi – “Alive (feat. Ratatat)”
King Khan & BBQ Show – “Tastebuds”
Radiohead v. Dave Brubeck – “Five Step”
Browse Timeline
Comments ( 5 )
Angela added these pithy words on Jan 06 10 at 5:35 pmThat last track…soo cool. I just finished an intro to jazz course at school, and it really opened my eyes to how influential jazz musicians were (and still are). And it makes me really happy to recognize such names as Dave Brubeck now.
Paul A. Gibson added these pithy words on Jan 09 10 at 10:31 pmI saw Dave Brubeck live a few years back. No lie. He was great. Also he’s so old he looks like a wizard. He probably is, come to think of it.
ThisAndrew added these pithy words on Jan 19 10 at 12:24 pmHey, what is that style of graph called? Anyone know?
yeah added these pithy words on Feb 22 10 at 1:47 amhow the fuck have you never heard of muse? can’t call yourself a hipster if you’ve lived under a rock your whole life
Paul A. Gibson added these pithy words on Feb 23 10 at 8:06 pmI’m not real sure how I missed that one, actually. It’s odd to admit it, but it’s the truth. To be fair, there’s a tremendous amount of music flying around at all times, so you can’t hear all of it. You just can’t.
It is sort of like getting to the end of 2001 without hearing ‘Who Let the Dogs Out.”
