The best and worst provincial cities in the UK for music: results!

[Slothrop]

Right, the results are in and I've done some stats bashing in Google Sheets.

The worst and best provincial cities of Britain, as scored on their musical legacy by you, the people of Dissensus, are as follows:

Newcastle: -12
Glasgow: -10
Brighton: -8
Belfast: -1
Bath: 0
Ipswich: 0
Blackpool: 1
Nottingham: 1
Rugby: 1
Cardiff: 2
Liverpool: 2
Southampton: 4
Leicester: 5
Coventry: 14
Birmingham: 16
Sheffield: 21
Bristol: 25
Leeds: 26
Manchester: 48

So, an absolute runaway win for Manchester, mainly carried by the Fall, A Guy Called Gerald, the Smiths and Joy Division. Leeds did better than expected - personally I think one thing that I realized from all this is how much stuff I like comes from there. The same is probably true, to a lesser extent, of Birmingham.

I feel a bit bad for Newcastle and Glasgow: I quite like them both as cities, but it has to be said that they've produced some absolute cack musically.

The negative voting was a bit hit and miss - I think it was a bit of a crapshoot which cities we included crap indie bands for, eg Leicester got blamed for Kasabian but Leeds got away with the Kaiser Chiefs - but for what it's worth, the cities with the most negative votes were:
Newcastle: 12
Glasgow: 10
Brighton: 8
Manchester: 7
Leicester: 6
Liverpool: 6

 

[WashYourHands]

Zoviet France = +30 votes

 

[catalog]

Great work slothrop. And I think the results are pretty good.

 

[luka]

exemplary poll engineering

 

[bun-u]

Great work - have posted on Twitter and on a couple of WhatsApp groups and it’s causing some rancour

 

[IdleRich]

It's a bit late in the day to mention this (not that it changes anything) but it always amused me to hang around in Oxford and pick up the free music papers they had lying around in pubs which would repeatedly make the most ludicrous claims for the invincible strength of the local music (actually band) scene based on three or four completely meritless local lovers that literally noone has ever heard of.

 

[version]

Leeds did better than expected

 

[bunnnnnn]

Brighton rightfully excoriated

 

[Benny Bunter]

I knew Manchester would win but surprised to see Leeds and Bristol beat Sheffield

 

[Benny Bunter]

If I'd seen Kaiser Chiefs on there I definitely would have put them in my worst list - properly heinous music

 

[version]

If I'd seen Kaiser Chiefs on there I definitely would have put them in my worst list - properly heinous music

That recent thing with them listing vaccine manufacturers and asking the audience to cheer for whichever one they'd got was embarrassing too. Onstage "banter" is usually bad enough as it is without scraping the barrel like that.

 

[WashYourHands]

Bottle them Virgo

Buy a ticket and go rogue. Not Bataclan rogue. Act as a stage diver, get invited on for band bants, then crackcrush to the singer’s face

That could inspire future generations

 

[Slothrop]

It's a bit late in the day to mention this (not that it changes anything) but it always amused me to hang around in Oxford and pick up the free music papers they had lying around in pubs which would repeatedly make the most ludicrous claims for the invincible strength of the local music (actually band) scene based on three or four completely meritless local lovers that literally noone has ever heard of.

It seems kind of interesting that I started the poll partly in response to a discussion of whether Bristol or Manchester was the worst city in the UK for music, and they came third and first respectively. And I can intuitively understand the hate in both cases, which I think is because it's easy to get annoyed by the way that so many people seem to celebrate them based on relatively mediocre bits of their musical history, ie its not about not appreciating The Fall, it's about people who bang on endlessly about the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays.

 

[Slothrop]

I'm also interested in why Leeds and Sheffield, say, have produced so much more good music than Nottingham, Glasgow and Newcastle...

 

[Benny Bunter]

It's maybe my fault Leeds beat Sheffield, I should have voted for Niche instead of T2 to represent bassline.

 

[bun-u]

Nottingham is strange one - I lived there for 3 years in the 90s and it was definitely a place where music was appreciated - some great record shops especially, but yes not much bandwidth in terms of artists/bands (though I suppose they have Sleaford Mods now)

 

[bun-u]

I lived in Leeds too - had a big inferiority complex to Manchester, but seemed to have its own musical relationship to different scenes in America (DC, LA especially) which set it apart slightly (again ftr, I’m taking way back)

 

[catalog]

I knew Manchester would win but surprised to see Leeds and Bristol beat Sheffield

Sheffields not produced anything worthwhile for several years. Of the three major North cities, its declined the most. Its got a good scene still, but its out of the loop. No M62.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I don't think any of these cities have produced much worthwhile for several years, decades even in some cases.

 

[catalog]

I think Manchester has but its been overshadowed by thd legacy of factory etc. That's a real problem in Manchester, the culture industry around the 80s. Doesn't let anything else breathe.

The Leeds noise scene is good and vibrant, someone not me mentioned guttersnipe but there's a few others. Nothing to shout about, they all just get on with it.