Here’s something that is sure to get the hairs up on some peoples’ backs. Virgil Griffith, the creator of WikiScanner and a grad student from CalTech did some research which studied the relationship between musical styles and bands and the SAT scores of the people who listened to them. He found that the smartest students listened to Beethoven (average SAT of 1371) and the students who rung in at the bottom of the SAT scores listened to Lil’ Wayne (average SAT of 889).
The average SAT score is around the 1000-1100 mark, and unsurprisingly most bands’ listeners fit into this range.
Of course the (unanswered) question is, what is the relationship? Do you choose music based on your intelligence? Surely your personality has something to do with musical tastes, doesn’t it? Can listening to certain types of music make you dumb or smart? Do people gravitate towards a certain type of music because they are smart and think that it will make them seem smarter?
I’ll leave that for you to decide. In the meantime, here’s the chart:
26 Comments Received
March 5th, 2009 @10:43 am
how many people were tested?
March 5th, 2009 @7:03 pm
Gospel, below average? Hardly surprising.
March 6th, 2009 @12:27 pm
@Billo666: Not really, jerk.
I wonder how I fit in there. I listen to Lil’ Wayne and The Postal Service and some of ‘em in between.
March 7th, 2009 @2:45 pm
wat no electronic music!!!
March 12th, 2009 @4:42 am
Here is a perfect example of a misinterpreted relationship of determination between what seems to be cause and effect. It’s not the music that makes you dumber or smarter nor does it help you with your SAT scores. First of all, the type of music one listens to is very much influenced by one’s environment, cultural and educational level. Second of all, SATs also have very much to do with one’s background and education and not so much to do with actual intelligence. So assuming that one picks music that influences his/her IQ and that generates certain test results is profoundly wrong. For future reference, try reading sociological papers on the subject. There is a very nice example that circulates in the academic world where cities with many churches had a high crime rate. You would think the churches were somehow the cause of the crimes, right? Wrong. The cities were merely larger and therefor harder to keep under control and that is why they had high crime rates but because they were larger they also had more churches…
March 17th, 2009 @10:39 am
Its funny how those who are “smarter” listen to “white” groups and bands. Looks like this is somewhat slanted in a cultural sense.
But really, if your only measure of intelligence is an SAT score, how much can you rely on that? Take a scenario where you put a kid with a perfect European who gets a perfect SAT score who listens to Beethoven. Would his intelligence give him the ability to survive in any ghetto populated by the people (who listen to Lil Wayne) that this chart says are stupid?
Intelligence is an abstract concept, and its all in the eye of the beholder. I think the maker of this chart has a narrow definition of what intelligence is.
Its also telling the swipe they take at Christians who listen to gospel. Not all Christians are stupid, though.
March 20th, 2009 @5:52 pm
Emo? Looks like the person who wrote this needs to stop listening to Lil Wayne…
March 24th, 2009 @6:55 pm
Hmmm… Number one – I’m not sure SAT scores are really intended or understood to measure intelligence; they measure how educated you are. Specifically they measure to what extent the student has learned what the powers-that-be believe should be learned in a typical high school education.
And, yes blacks and other (non-asian) minorities consistently put up lower average SAT scores than whites – there has been a ton of research published on this topic and I can all but guarantee you that /none/ of it concludes “whites are smarter.” I’m sure there are numerous factors, but intelligence ain’t one of them (money, perhaps?)
But that’s not really what this chart is about. I can’t believe that anyone including its author(s) would truly suggest a /causal/ relationship between music and intelligence, and even less between music and SAT scores (unless you’re talking about when the brain is still forming – like infants/toddlers). I imagine the chart’s silly name was intended only to be attention-grabbing and not to be taken literally. What it does show is a correlation between taste in music (largely a cultural matter) and SAT scores (which are also culturally biased, as I already alluded to) so the fact that a correlation appears is hardly surprising.
Even if you were going to claim a causal relationship between listening to music and intelligence I would imagine that it makes more sense to claim it the other way around – i.e. “being dumb causes a preference for certain music,” not “certain music causes stupidity.” I still think either claim is /highly/ unlikely, though.
Cheers,
-Phil
August 4th, 2009 @11:43 am
Im just wondering if its not so much that or demographics.
B/c alot of people who listen to some of that music would never be exposed to anything but that type of music.
i might be bold to even so much as being closed minded about listening to anything new.
September 27th, 2009 @12:03 pm
@Billo666: Sufjan Stevens is an openly Christian musician. He rates higher than the “musicians” you listen to.
Despite the fact none of this matters: ZING!
October 27th, 2009 @8:32 pm
This seems interesting cause my girlfriend older sister listens to lil Wayne and she is a very intelligent woman.
im in between Maroon 5 and U2 but beethoven is nice also!
November 17th, 2009 @7:14 pm
in this comment section: butthurt people who can’t take the fact that the music they listen to is strongly correlated to how dumb they are.
hey, you’re all pretty dumb! get over it.
January 9th, 2010 @4:56 pm
where’s the jazz fusion rankings?
January 12th, 2010 @3:13 pm
This article shouldn’t be taken seriously. It is not interesting, enlightening or funny. It is thoughtless at best and inflammatory at worst. Another smarmy, useless, self-congratulatory brain fart on the internet that doesn’t help anyone understand anything better about music or art, and doesn’t explore ways to understand people who are culturally and socioeconomically different than they are. How about we stop talking about SAT scores and talk about social class and how music and art are directly related to those things? Oh wait, you’re not prepared to do that. You’re prepared to “raise hairs.”
It probably wouldn’t have even seen the light of day if the results didn’t give the author a secret little thrill to know he was still in the ruling class. Let me guess; beyond a shadow of a doubt, the people involved in taking this data and presenting it were all caucasian. Ya think? You feel better about yourself now, my fellow music nerd? Hey, yeah – “black” people are dumb and “white” people are smart! Hey, more damning evidence – It’s just a coincidence that a vaulted European composer from the mists of the past “makes” you smart, while a ghetto-talkin’ negro’s music would “make” you dumb. Don’t even mention Coltrane or Miles, they are in that little bracket near the back with all the other dumb negroes. And there’s enough fuzzy area so that you can get away with it – I mean even the Beatles are *kinda* dumb right? In comparison to a few other caucasian artists. You can take a little hit there if you still come out on top – it’s the perfect crime! And the author can throw his hands up and say “hey, those are just the facts! I didn’t lie about the results!”
Well, sir. You didn’t lie about the results, but conflating SAT scores with “smart” and “dumb” is something not very far off from what nazi Eugenicists did, and not only is that dangerous, but it’s also, to use your language, incredibly dumb. Considering Einstein would by most indications likely have scored relatively low on an SAT test, I think you need to go back to the books on this one. Remember those?
January 27th, 2010 @9:34 pm
I highly doubt the validity of this. How many people were tested? Also, high SAT =/= high intelligence. There is so much more to “intelligence” than can be inferred from one cognitive test. Treat this experiment and this article with a grain of salt.
February 1st, 2010 @5:11 pm
Correlation does not imply causation. Like Ioa and Phil said, there are other factors that contribute to higher SAT scores.
March 13th, 2010 @11:57 am
Hi,
Is this really any mystery? I feel that it’s been obvious for decades that classical music is more complicated than other forms of music. Jazz with it’s chord progressions is the same… sophisticated and complicated. Take your average “Joe or Jane” and teach them music and you’ll see the difference. Sure this sounds condescending but so are IQ tests, SAT’s and so on and so forth. We are not created equal. Oh, the law may say we are, and famous speakers in the past may say we are, but we are not equal. So too, intelligence and ability levels in people are not equal. Face the facts of life.
March 28th, 2010 @9:51 am
“Jazz with it’s chord progressions is the same… sophisticated and complicated.”
During the first 20 years of the Jazz invention it was often cited as being low brow – a music only for uneducated people (at the time that was code for black people). If you look at the chart now you’ll see that Jazz scores pretty low. However, if you’ve ever taken a Jazz theory course you will quickly concur that Jazz is sophisticated and complicated. And often visceral as well.
Rap seems to get that reputation now – however, rappers like Nas, Outkast, or Gift of Gab (a personal favorite) require a good deal of thought to digest. Perhaps not in a musical sense, but certainly in a lyrical sense.
The fact that this comes up as a race issue, I feel, is revealing. Demographically, most people purchasing Lil’ Wayne and Beyoncee records are white, female, and are between the ages of 13 and 17. And while I don’t have statistics on “The Used” it seems to fall into that neo-punk category marketed toward white males, age 15.
Soca music and Reggaeton are both largely appreciated by people who speak English as a second language – or perhaps not at all. ESL students add another factor to this chart that separates intelligence from SAT scores.
On another note – I have to wonder why Beethoven is the only classical composer mentioned. What about Mozart, Bach, Hummel, Haydn, Stravinsky, or modernists like John Cage or Philip Glass?
April 18th, 2010 @2:53 pm
If you go to the website, you’ll see that the creator of this graph explains his methods of determining these data. It wasn’t the most scientific of methods, but it still seems to indicate that there is some link between intelligence and tastes in music. It is highly unlikely that music influences intelligence, as the author notes but also points out that, regardless, the implications are quite interesting. Also, to those who say that the creator did this as a way to show off his superior musical tastes, read the FAQ; the creator says that his favorite bands on the list are Tool, Radiohead, and Metallica. Two of those were not among the very top, and one ranked below the average SAT score. And finally, those who say that the SAT does not indicate intelligence are just butthurt because their music was on the lower end. Sure, it may have somewhat of a cultural bias, but overall, it measures exactly what it is supposed to do: measure intellectual capabilities.
The site: http://musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr
Also, Matt, the reason Beethoven is the only classical musician on there is that there weren’t enough data on those other artists.
July 4th, 2010 @1:40 pm
I wish this test could be done with all genres of music. In my opinion, I believe that music such as classical or house music don’t bring down your intelligence simply because most of it is instrumental. Music like hip-hop contains alot of lyrics based on sex, drugs, money which makes the listeners think only about that. I’m a house music junkie and when i listen to it i dont have to focus on lyrics. I listen to the sounds in the background all combined and timing. Same for classical, you pick up on the timing and the instruments rather than the words.
July 16th, 2010 @4:11 am
Sam, SATs may INDICATE some intellectual capabilities, but it does not act to accurately measure “intelligence” to any significant degree. As some others have noted, there is so much to intelligence, that one test that tests verbal and simple math abilities cannot hope to accurately measure it. For example, think of all of the creative geniuses out there who seem unlikely to score very high on the SATs.
As far as the data in this experiment goes: this is one test with …
… a relatively small and limited sample population (Facebook users who volunteered to take part – to improve your next experiment, choose a significantly larger and RANDOM non-voluntary sample) …
… a severely limited number of bands (think of how many bands are on that list, and now think of how many bands there are in the world – also realize that the vast majority of the bands on that list are included in large part due to their popularity) …
… a limited number of genres (ambient? IDM? Industrial? Noize? Etc. etc. …)
… and the list goes on.
It’s evident that this test was not conducted very scientifically so I’m not sure why some people actually seem to think it’s useful for implying anything significant about music vs intelligence.
And no, I’m not throwing a fit because this experiment indicates the bands/genres I regularly listen to correspond with lower intelligence. In fact, no genre I regularly listen to is even present on that list! And before anyone bashes me about the possibility that I obtained a low SAT score, my SAT score was a 1510/1600. But let me stress again, intelligence cannot be measured by the SATs, IQ tests or any such tests alone. I am inclined to think that intelligence is largely immeasurable.
July 18th, 2010 @1:54 pm
i find it kind of humorous that everyone seems to be taking this test so seriously. Multiple people ‘defending’ their own intelligence by degrading SAT validity because their favorite band is fall out boy (or some other lame band lower on the scale.)
sure,
the SAT isnt a completely accurate test of intelligence or knowledge.
sure,
there are many factors that regard to intelligence.
and no,
neither music/intelligence directly relate.
take it for what it is, an interesting study. consider what youre looking at here, most of the music on the lower end of the scale are (generally) top 40′s mainstream… concluding that the listeners (POSSIBLY) dont care what they listen to- will follow a bandwagon and will listen to music simply because they are told to like it or because it has no challenging lyrics, basic song structure (verse chorus verse bridge chorus…etc), basic chord progressions/instrumentation and provide no REAL innovation amongst their genre.
whereas the higher part of the scale are (generally) more elusive indie bands that create the music THEY want to challenging the listener with innovative soundscapes, metaphorical lyrics, dynamic song structures and overall conceptual albums – typically not played on the radio. meaning their listener has discovered them through searching.
July 18th, 2010 @1:55 pm
however,
beethoven WAS deaf. so to say that one is influenced by the other (possibly) but not exclusively. a deaf person is just as capable of being intelligent as a regular individual.
July 18th, 2010 @2:16 pm
speaking in more general terms once more, bands featured on the lower end of the scale typically write about themes such as sex, drugs, money (as stated above by another member) as well as teen angst, a shallow concept of love, and are generally played on the radio often in the top 40 (as i mentioned prior) – meaning that MOST people arent in fact especially intelligent as a nation. as far as the united states is concerned, MANY people are uneducated and can identify with concepts such as these. the demographics that the bands reach for should also be considered.
to the user mentioning a “white european boy in ‘the ghetto’” and being able to survive: naturally you are stereotyping a ghetto being populated by another race other than white (despite there being many white ghettos), if you are implying the aggression stereotyped in these ghettos (especially such aggression and hostility towards a different race); is that not racism and generally accepted as ignorance, arrogant and most importantly unintelligent ?
August 9th, 2010 @9:04 pm
Here’s the thing about SAT. It may not measure your IQ perfectly accurately since there is so many types of “intelligence” to measure. However, what the test does do is test your ability to figure out ways to solve problems and overcoming obstacles; which to me, is very important in life. The smart people, and again when I say smart people I mean the ones who go off to good colleges and make it somewhere in life, figure out ways to overcome the test. So yes, I support the legitimacy of this test.
And also, if you look at the artists on that chart, it makes a shitload of sense
August 17th, 2010 @10:41 am
Im fine then, my fave bands are the beatles, aerosmith, red hot chili peppers, nirvana, the ramones, bon jovi and ac/dc and theyre average to high so im good
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