London officially named one of the best cities in the world for music

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London: still quite good

published 18 June 2025

Cities are a bit like children - everyone is biased when it comes to their own. So, you may have heard many old rockers in the corners of pubs waxing lyrical about London’s music scene in its glory days of the 80s, 90s, and noughties, and taken it with a pinch of salt.

But it’s no secret that London is home to hundreds of grassroots music venues. The big smoke has given us genres like grime and dubstep, and has been the home of some of the biggest artists in the world. There was even a whole redesigned tube map honouring London’s grassroots music scene. So, in our eyes, it's always been a music hotspot.

But, thanks to a new study, London has officially been revealed as the best city in the world for all things music. Researchers at SeatPick analysed cities around the world across five categories - the number of concerts, music venues, festivals, home-grown artists, and music related business generated. Each category was given a score to give each city an overall musical mark out of 10.

an image of a festival crowd at Glastonbury festival. There are people on other people's shoulders and lots of people waving flags

London scooped up the top spot for 2025 with an almost-perfect 9.67 out of 10. This was mainly thanks to its 199 venues, 1,734 concerts, 44 festivals, and staggering 3,042 homegrown artists (not including your ex who posts guitar riffs on their SoundCloud account).

Missing out on the top spot was Berlin who ranked second with a score of 9.55 - not surprising seeing as they are the home of techno and Berghain. The German hotspot was followed by Chicago, Vienna, and Nashville.

The top ten cities were:

London
Berlin
Chicago
Vienna
Nashville
Manchester
New York
Glasgow
Seattle
Bristol

an image of the digitally redesigned London underground map which honours London's grassroots music scene. The lines are aux cables, and each line represents a different aspect of music, including: iconic venues, genres, and artists

London wasn’t the only UK spot which clinched a spot on the top ten, Manchester landed in sixth spot, with Glasgow coming in eighth place, and Bristol just making the cut in tenth place. Overall, there were four UK cities in the world ranking - pretty impressive, eh?

Really, this news just makes us want to make the most of all the music in the city. We’re spoilt for choice with the number of gigs happening each week, even creating the ultimate gig list to keep track of whose performing when, from festival headliners to indie rock bands in an annex of East London.

Getting in the Glasto spirit? These are the best headliners of all time

Hermione Blandford is the Content Editor for Shortlist’s social media which means you can usually find her scrolling through Instagram and calling it work, or stopping random people in the street and accosting them with a mini mic. She has previously worked in food and drink PR for brands including Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray, Gordon's, The Singleton, Lagavulin and Don Julio which means she is a self confessed expert in spicy margaritas and pints, regularly popping into the pub in the name of research.

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