The Geography of Popular Music via Coachella

Is Stockholm the world capital of music? Richard Florida maps the geography of popular music using the announced lineup for the 2012 Coachella Music Festival.

1 minute read

January 17, 2012, 5:00 AM PST

By Jonathan Nettler @nettsj


Writing in The Atlantic Cities, Florida sees something of a sea change in popular culture. In analyzing ranking of which cities are home to the most bands in this year's festival lineup, he finds that "What's especially interesting is the rise of non-American music scenes. Eight of the top 14 cities are outside the U.S. In fact, slightly more than half (71) of Coachella's 141 acts hail from foreign cities."

By shear number of bands, London, Los Angeles, and New York are the top contributors, unsurprisingly. However, when adjusting for population size, Stockholm and Austin come in first and second.

Of course little of this will matter to the 75,000 concert-goers flocking to Southern California for two weekends of amazing music come April.

Monday, January 16, 2012 in The Atlantic Cities

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