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The Shins at last year's Bumbershoot, courtesy of Seattlest Flickr user Andrew G. Davis
MSN has listed 15 of the best cities and festivals for music lovers, citing Bumbershoot as the reason they clocked Seattle in at the number two spot.
We come in behind only Memphis, ahead of Chicago, Tokyo, London, Vienna, and Los Angeles. New York City was number 9, Nashville made the cut at number 12, and New Orleans—arguably the best place in the country to hear any kind of music, with some of the best music festivals Seattlest has ever experienced—came in at 13. Austin, Tex., a.k.a. the "live music capitol of the world," came in dead last.
We don't know. Maybe they listed them in ascending order, but there's nothing to indicate as much. What do you guys think? Does Bumbershoot singlehandedly make us one of the best music destinations in the world? Moreso than, say, the home of Irma Thomas, Louis Armstrong, the Neville Brothers, and Dr. John? Moreso than the home of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, for heavenssakes?
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Bumbershoot blows. They haven't had any decent headliners in years.
Contrast that to Sasquatch, which just had REM, The Cure, Modest Mouse, Deathcab for Cutie, The Presidents of the USA, and more.
Austin in last place? Seattle ahead of New Orleans?!? Did Greg Nickels and his council on music pay off MSN?
Bumbershoot is a clusterfuck and it has been for at least the last decade. Other local music festivals like Sasquatch, Folklife, and even Georgetown Music Festival help make Seattle a great town for festivals. But not a city that comes even close to that last place city...or to Memphis or New Orleans.
I call bullshit.
MSN? They are still around?
To counter two of the above commenters, I love Bumbershoot. It's a pure steal for the price ($25/day if you buy in presale) and number of bands you get to see.
Many new bands that I've discovered I found at Bumbershoot and now still listen to years later.
And, they do have good headliners. STP this year. Maybe that's not your personal taste, but they're just as good as many of the Sasquatch headliners. And Sasquatch is like $55/day.
Austin at dead last? This list is crap. SXSW is orders of magnitude better than Bumbershoot, with a much bigger payoff to chaos ratio. Seattle's got a great scene but we aren't second best in the country by any means.
I took a look at this year's Bumbershoot and they finally have a decent lineup. Beck, STP, and Offspring are all in the works.
But, that still doesn't change the fact that it's the first decent lineup for Bumbershoot in about a decade. Sasquatch has been around since 2002, far shorter than Bumbershoot's time since 1971. Yet, Sasquatch has had a better lineup than Bumbershoot each year.
As for whether which city has a better this or that, it all kind of reminds me of bragging about penis size. Everybody thinks their music festivals are bigger, wider, and better than everybody else's. And unless you've personally seen and experienced all of the music festivals out there, you really can't say which is best.
"I took a look at this year's Bumbershoot and they finally have a decent lineup. Beck, STP, and Offspring are all in the works."
i'll agree that this is a fantastic lineup as long as you're able to convince me that it's 1996...
Stone Temple Pilots are horrendous live and they haven't had a good album in at least 12 years.
STP headlining Bumpershoot is a travesty.
nothing about that slideshow suggests that it's a ranked list.
i have to admit i'm looking forward to bumbershoot for the first time ever this year, but only because it's so full of folk and country singers. STP as a headliner is silly.
Where does it say they are ranked from 1 to 15? It says, quite simply, "Here are some of the world's top cities and festivals for music lovers — by no means exclusive!" The slide show doesn't say anything about rankings, and doesn't put numbers next to the cities.
I think you're off base here.
bigyaz - even if it is a random list, how does seattle come to mind ahead of NOLA and austin and vienna? i guess that's pretty subjective, but still. we're talking best in the world, here. as much as i love and am committed to our local music scene, i just don't think it would be the second city in the world to come to mind in this context. they're not alphabetical, they're not in order by number of musical events...it just doesn't seem to make sense. to me. but that's just me.
There is an implied ranking, at least a push within the consciousness.
This is evidenced in the message boards (which they try so 'hard' to get you to use):
Need I go on? People here are so quick to judge. Just take a chill pill, you'd think Seattlest is the end all be all for journalism and information.
wait a minute, we're not?