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Music

America's Top Corn-Growing States Really Love Daft Punk

Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska are apparently obsessed with buying 'Random Access Memories' on vinyl.
Photo courtesy of Biz3 Publicity

When French electronic music legends Daft Punk put out Random Access Memories in 2013, some of their longtime fans bristled at how heavily live instrumentation featured in their new sound. While Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter's stylistic changeup may have made them lose favor with club music diehards, the data in a Forbes list of America's favorite vinyl records by state reveals they potentially tapped into a whole new, corn-loving demographic in the process.

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The list is based exclusively on sales figures from eBay, so it's a dubious connection to say the least, but it's still interesting to note which states couldn't get enough Daft Punk on vinyl last year. THUMP dug into the data, and it turns out that of the five states that had Random Access Memory in their favorite vinyl albums of 2016, four of them—Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri—are among the top ten corn-producing states in the country according to the USDA's most report figures on crop production in the US. The other state that loved RAM the most is New Mexico, which has barely anything to do with corn.

While we know that correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation, it's possible that this new data leaves some questions to be unpacked. What do corn production and Daft Punk have in common? Is this phenomenon in any way analogous or connected to #PizzaGate? Could White House press secretary Sean Spicer's confusing tweets about Daft Punk's helmets have had anything to do with it? At this point, it's hard to say.

In case you missed it, Daft Punk returned to the Grammy's stage with The Weeknd last night for their first live performance since 2014, when they performed at the awards show with Pharrell, Nile Rodgers, and Stevie Wonder.

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