Photo: Courtesy Neon Gold Records.It's an important question, particularly if you want anyone to respect you ever again. We mean, your favorite band has to be good, right? And, it has to be cool, obviously. But, most importantly, if you want to pick a favorite band that's sufficiently hipster, it has to have a decent following on the "scene" yet be obscure enough that the majority of people you're talking to have never heard of it. That's the sweet spot.
For those of you who still think that, say, Arcade Fire or, pft, The National are hipster enough to get you cred, there's a handy chart we'd like send your way. Created by the folks at Priceonomics (what, you've never heard of them?), it measures a band's obscurity (calculated inversely by Facebook shares) against its Pitchfork rating. Now, we can't vouch for that method, but the results are close to airtight. Arcade Fire, not hipster. Deafhaven, fairly hipster. What's interesting here is that ur-art-punk band My Blood Valentine doesn't get the nod while Vampire Weekend does. Dunno if we agree, but it is delicious food for thought.
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Check out the graphs on the next two pages and see if your favorite bands show up and, maybe, get put onto something new, too. Whatever you find, remember this: We were into them way before they were popular. (PolicyMic)
Photo: Courtesy Priceonomics.
Photo: Courtesy Priceonomics.