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Apparently, we listen to a lot of Bonobo in California. (Say what?!) A new map boils down which artists we prefer to tune into the most by state. While some are pretty spot on, like how New Jerseyans are listening to Bruce Springsteen and of course, Illinoisans with Sufjan Stevens, most of these seriously can't be real.
Are the residents of Arizona really getting some angst out by listening to Linkin Park? And Jack Johnson would seem like something Hawaiians would favor more than folks from Wisconsin! Although it's pretty hilarious to note that according to the map, Maine is still rocking out to R.E.M. and Florida is keeping themselves close to Rick Ross's Maybach Music.
What's most amusing is that the results of this map were based on actual data acquired through aggregating listener preferences on a wide range of music services through The Echo Nest. The company provides music intelligence info to services such as Spotify, iHeartradio, and SiriusXM, according to its website.
The map was created by Paul Lamere, The Echo Nest's director of developer platform, and he sampled the music preferences of a quarter million listeners who had a zip code linked to their accounts. He discussed on his blog the method he used to come up with his results:
I aggregated these listeners into regions (state, regional and all-US). To compare regions I look at the top-N most popular artists in each region and look for artists that have a substantial change in rank between the two regions. These artists are the artists that define the taste for the region.
So, hold your horses—it doesn't look like these results are quite on the money if he's comparing changes between regions, not actual number one rankings.
You can check out a larger version of the map here on Lamere's blog.
Now, let's take a moment to honor our state musician, British producer and DJ Bonobo, with his most popular song, "Kiara" (according to Spotify):
[h/t: TIME]
UPDATE 4:50 p.m.: Lamere told LAist that his map isn't exactly showing the most popular favorite artists from each state, but rather the the most "distinctive" artists in the states. "The map isn't saying that Californian's tune into Bonobo more than any other artist," he said. "It is saying that when you compare California listeners to the rest of the country, Californians tend to listen to Bonobo more than than rest of the country does."
