Music

The most hipster bands as determined by science

by Tyler Munro

There’s no worse contribution to popular music’s lexicon than the word “hipster,” the very sound of which makes me wish I had a handful of nails for every facepalm. As much as the term has become a descriptor of all things bougie-obnoxious in popular culture, it’s devolved into self-parody. What even is hipster music, really? Math has the answer.

Priceonomics is a website that specializes in cost comparisons and price estimates and, for whatever reason, used their data mining abilities to create The Hipster Music Index. By comparing an artist’s score on Pitchfork to the amount of shares the review got, the self-professed group of “bike-riding, IPA-sipping, vinyl-listening, Mission-living hipsters” came to a few conclusions. Seen above, they are as follows:

Microhouse producer The Field is the most hipster-appropriate band out there while indie-dads The National are cool-cred repellent. Trouble Will Find Me? Over it, bro. Haim? Heard it. Liked it. Moved on.

Curiously, Drake is still cool, while Run the Jewels are on the fringe of the “Beer Me Bro” music index, so okay, there are some inconsistencies.

Priceonomics aren’t sure whether it’s okay to like Vampire Weekend, and the notion that My Bloody Valentine are less accepted than Kanye West is a little curious, but this is meant less as a blanket statement than a fun lampooning; like Portlandia, only funny.