Grand Rapids Among America's Best Cities For This Type Of Music

We like to rock out here in Grand Rapids, or do we? GR just hit the top 10 for enjoying this kind of music.

As much as rock carries the day when it comes to smaller venues and radio stations here in Beer City, it is country music that has become the most popular genre of music.

A survey by LawnStarter.com (?) showed that Grand Rapids is the fifth best city for country music fans. Their methodology took into account several kay factors:

In each city, we looked at the number of country radio stations, concerts, and performance venues. We also gauged the size of the local fandom based on Google search trends and availability of museums dedicated to the genre.

While the interest in country music ranked Grand Rapids a paltry 182nd, our overall scores in venue access (30th) and performance access (8th), brought our overall score.

There were some surprises in the site's top 10, of course Nashville, home of country music was number one. Las Vegas, home of several residencies currently involving country stars was number two.

But numbers three and four: St. Louis, MO and Salt Lake City UT took some experts by surprise. Although I'm not sure why, both are the largest cities in states with huge amounts of rural land lying just outside the metro area, so I can kind of see it.

Here's the complete top twenty of the 'Best Cities For Country Music In America!':

1. Nashville, Tennessee.

2. Las Vegas, Nevada . . . makes sense with hotel residencies and festivals.

3. St. Louis, Missouri.

4. Salt Lake City, Utah.

5. Grand Rapids, Michigan.

6. Knoxville, Tennessee.

7. Tulsa, Oklahoma.

8. Birmingham, Alabama.

9. Atlanta, Georgia.

10. Denver, Colorado.

11. San Antonio, Texas.