Toronto-based research group Martin Prosperity Institute has crunched the data and the most music-centric city is… Nashville.

Yup, according to the firm’s Metro Music Index (the mechanics of which sound very dry and procedural for such a fun topic) the Tennessee town is tops for its myriad recording and music publishing businesses along with its dense population of musicians, from mega country stars to bands like Kings of Leon and Jack White, who opened his Third Man Studios there.

Next up: New York and neighboring New Jersey, then Los Angeles region, the Bay Area and Seattle. Austin, Texas, the self-declared “live music capital of the world,” comes in at a rather anemic number 12.

Too bad a corresponding list of Canadian cities wasn’t issued, but it would probably a) be way shorter than 20 and b) look like this: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa, Calgary, Hanna, Alberta. And yes, this last city is giving props to Nickelback... got a problem with that, haters?

Back to the list at hand.

The Hollywood Reporter finds it odd that Atlanta, home to Cee Lo Green and hip-hop’s Outkast, T.I. and Ludacris, lands at No. 23, while cities like Detroit (37), home to Motown, Memphis (35), where Sun Records was based, and Philadelphia (45), city of soul, which were so vital to the history of R&B, country and rock decades ago, seem to have lost some of their musical luster. 

Atlantic Cities has an excellent breakdown of the study’s findings which details noteworthy artists and landmarks of each region and concludes that size doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to thriving music scenes.

Read it here and check out the Top 20 below:

1.  Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN
2.  New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
3.  Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA
4.  San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
5.  Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
6.  Las Vegas-Paradise, NV
7.  Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA
8.  New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA
9.  Rochester, NY
10. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
11. Orlando-Kissimmee, FL     
12. Austin-Round Rock, TX      
13. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA        
14. Pittsburgh, PA        
15. Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI
16. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL
17. Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI          
18. Indianapolis-Carmel, IN    
19. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
20. Denver-Aurora, CO

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