¶ (Almost) No One Is Immune · 21 October 2014 listen/tech
At work I've been looking at the distinctive collective music listening of individual US cities. A lot of this, as you might imagine, turns out to be local music from in or near each city, or pop music with some sort of regional connection.
But statistically, the most popular "national" hits tend to get mixed in with the local stuff at some point, through sheer ubiquity. Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" is the most obvious example of this at the moment, a song so popular that it's basically representative of the distinctive listening of humans, or at least of American humans who use Spotify.
For amusement, though, here is a ranking of major US Cities by where on their most-distinctive current song chart "Shake It Off" ranks as of today. The cities at the top are the ones who have surrendered most unreservedly to "Shake It Off", either through genuine disproportionate enthusiasm, and/or because they just don't have anything better of their own to play. The ones at the bottom have maintained the strongest resistance to this invasion. The >100s at the very bottom show the cities where immunity is so strong that "Shake It Off" doesn't even make the top 100 most-distinctive songs.
Presumably none of this will bother Taylor, but "people who are not going to listen disproportionately are going to not listen disproportionately" wouldn't fit the meter of the song very well, so I assume that's why she didn't mention it.
But statistically, the most popular "national" hits tend to get mixed in with the local stuff at some point, through sheer ubiquity. Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" is the most obvious example of this at the moment, a song so popular that it's basically representative of the distinctive listening of humans, or at least of American humans who use Spotify.
For amusement, though, here is a ranking of major US Cities by where on their most-distinctive current song chart "Shake It Off" ranks as of today. The cities at the top are the ones who have surrendered most unreservedly to "Shake It Off", either through genuine disproportionate enthusiasm, and/or because they just don't have anything better of their own to play. The ones at the bottom have maintained the strongest resistance to this invasion. The >100s at the very bottom show the cities where immunity is so strong that "Shake It Off" doesn't even make the top 100 most-distinctive songs.
# | City |
1 | Arlington VA |
1 | Chandler |
1 | Gilbert |
1 | Mesa |
2 | Akron |
2 | Albany |
2 | Anchorage |
2 | Cleveland |
2 | New Haven |
2 | Pasadena |
2 | Tucson |
2 | Worcester |
3 | Alexandria |
3 | Des Moines |
3 | Orange |
3 | Scottsdale |
3 | Vancouver |
3 | Wilmington DE |
4 | Hoboken |
4 | Plano |
4 | Pompano Beach |
5 | Gainesville |
5 | Hartford |
5 | Somerville |
5 | Syracuse |
5 | Tacoma |
5 | Wichita |
6 | Bellevue |
6 | Providence |
6 | Reno |
6 | State College |
7 | Colorado Springs |
7 | Santa Clara |
8 | Aurora |
8 | Little Rock |
9 | Littleton |
9 | Tempe |
10 | East Lansing |
10 | Tampa |
10 | Trenton |
10 | Virginia Beach |
11 | Irvine |
11 | Sunnyvale |
12 | Albuquerque |
12 | Chicago |
13 | Boise |
13 | Boston |
13 | Cambridge |
13 | Las Vegas |
13 | Philadelphia |
13 | Silver Spring |
13 | Spokane |
14 | Dayton |
14 | Jacksonville |
14 | Miami Beach |
14 | Overland Park |
15 | Durham |
15 | Eugene |
15 | Lexington |
15 | St. Louis |
16 | Raleigh |
16 | Washington DC |
17 | Boca Raton |
17 | Springfield MO |
18 | Greensboro |
18 | Greenville |
18 | Spring |
19 | Cincinnati |
19 | Hyattsville |
19 | Murfreesboro |
20 | Fremont |
20 | Fresno |
20 | Ithaca |
20 | Tallahassee |
21 | Bloomington |
21 | Indianapolis |
21 | Pittsburgh |
23 | Corona |
23 | Phoenix |
24 | Frisco |
25 | Columbia MO |
26 | Ann Arbor |
26 | Denton |
26 | San Luis Obispo |
26 | West Palm Beach |
27 | Grand Rapids |
27 | Madison |
27 | Norman |
28 | Norfolk |
29 | Jersey City |
29 | Orlando |
29 | San Jose |
30 | Lawrence |
30 | Louisville |
31 | Bakersfield |
31 | Omaha |
32 | New York |
32 | Richmond |
33 | Salt Lake City |
34 | Columbus |
34 | Lewisville |
34 | Oklahoma City |
35 | Milwaukee |
36 | Wilmington NC |
37 | Columbia SC |
37 | Santa Barbara |
38 | San Diego |
39 | Charleston |
40 | Lincoln |
40 | Toledo |
41 | Long Beach |
41 | Riverside |
41 | St. Paul |
42 | Urbana |
43 | Berkeley |
44 | Katy |
44 | Minneapolis |
45 | Buffalo |
46 | Stockton |
47 | El Paso |
49 | Fort Collins |
54 | Charlotte |
55 | Chapel Hill |
55 | Kansas City |
55 | Knoxville |
55 | Tulsa |
56 | New Orleans |
57 | Denver |
58 | Farmington |
60 | Concord |
60 | San Antonio |
64 | Baton Rouge |
67 | Birmingham |
68 | Hayward |
73 | Mountain View |
81 | Whittier |
83 | Seattle |
85 | Humble |
86 | Atlanta |
86 | Santa Monica |
87 | Grand Prairie |
92 | Memphis |
>100 | APO |
>100 | Anaheim |
>100 | Arlington TX |
>100 | Athens |
>100 | Austin |
>100 | Baltimore |
>100 | Boulder |
>100 | The Bronx |
>100 | Brooklyn |
>100 | College Station |
>100 | Dallas |
>100 | Detroit |
>100 | Fort Lauderdale |
>100 | Fort Worth |
>100 | Hialeah |
>100 | Hollywood FL |
>100 | Honolulu |
>100 | Houston |
>100 | Irving |
>100 | Los Angeles |
>100 | Lubbock |
>100 | Mesquite |
>100 | Miami |
>100 | Nashville |
>100 | Newark |
>100 | Oakland |
>100 | Portland OR |
>100 | Provo |
>100 | Rochester |
>100 | Sacramento |
>100 | San Francisco |
>100 | Santa Ana |
Presumably none of this will bother Taylor, but "people who are not going to listen disproportionately are going to not listen disproportionately" wouldn't fit the meter of the song very well, so I assume that's why she didn't mention it.