A joint effort by the Chicago Music Commission and the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Cultural Policy, found both encouraging and not-so-surprising news about the local music biz. Firstly, Chicago “ranks third among metropolitan areas in the overall size of its music industry” behind, surprise-surprise; Los Angeles and New York. Chicago also had lower total revenue (meaning cheaper ticket prices for us, yay.)
The more-interesting news, fleshed out well by
Chicago Innerview, is that Chicago books better bands, more often, for (relatively) cheaper ticket prices than any other American city:
…Researchers looked at the number of performances from Billboard magazine's "Top 100 Artists" and the "Top 100 Artists" from the Village Voice Critics Poll and found that in 2004, Chicago had about 10 more such concerts than New York City. "There’s no other city where those critically acclaimed shows make up a bigger percentage of the total revenue generated," the study's co-author Dan Silver states. "So Chicago is really the center of high critical taste."
A study quantifying the awesomeness of Chicago Music is nice to have, but there’s another way of celebrating the diversity of music in this city, and no, it’s not to re-name streets as Honorable Peter Cetera Parkway, and OkGo Boulevard.
It’s an all-city mashup mixtape of course! Courtesy of
The Hood Internet. Though it doesn’t delve too far into the Blues and Gospel history of Chicago, lots of tunes from multiple decades are represented here and pack a serious punch--Twista rhyming over The Sea & Cake, Diverse with Andrew Bird, Dude N Nem N OFFICE, The Cool Kids party-rappin’ over house legend Frankie Knuckles--it's all here. It’s a tight mix. My personal fav has to be the ’85 Bears shuffling alongside Kanye and Wilco. -Brian
