Jay Z, Beyonce, And Lil’ Wayne Are All ‘Music That Makes You Dumb’
Jay Z, Beyoncé, and Lil’ Wayne may all be extremely popular, but according to California Institute of Technology student Virgil Griffith, he’s managed to gather evidence that those acts are all part of the “music that makes you dumb.” Of course, even if the study is true that isn’t providing those artists from cashing in on their supposedly “dumb” music.
In a related report by The Inquisitr, somehow Nicki Minaj twerked her way off that list, although an Anaconda video parody claims it proves just how dumb twerking really is. Of course, that consensus is probably becoming fairly popular right about now since Miley Cyrus’ twerking days are over — but now we are stuck with the Nae Nae.
Years ago, evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller claimed that “driving an Acura, Infiniti, Subaru or Volkswagen is a sign of high intelligence. Driving a Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford or Hummer is a sign of low intelligence. Listening to Bjork is a sign of high intelligence, while listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd is a sign of low intelligence.” NPR summarized the controversy.
“Once you get started down the road of gross generalizations — and dare to write them down — you quickly realize that you might actually be putting music fans, including yourself, into a stifling and, frankly, discriminatory dichotomy of intelligent versus unintelligent.”
Software developer Virgil Griffith must have felt like that was a challenge, saying he decided to create this graph after he listened to music from artists like Jay Z and Beyoncé and wondered if there might be a correlation between intelligence and music choices (he’s aware that correlation does not equate to causation).
“I’ve listened to artists who after listening to I thought to myself ‘Wow… loving this rubbish says a lot about someone and how much they got going on in their head.’ Could one’s musical tastes say something about intelligence? How about SAT scores? Well, like any good scientist, I decided to see how well my personal experience matches reality. How might one do this?”
Virgil pulled this off looking at the average test scores from CollegeBoard and then manually scoured Facebook to determine what kinds of music students liked to listen to. The “music that makes you dumb list” is not comprehensive, but it does contain 133 of the most popular entries, although if Virgil didn’t have enough samples to calculate a reliable average he discarded the artist from the list (is that where Nicki Minaj is hiding?).
In the end, the study found that those with the top SAT scores tend to listen to Beethoven, but not far behind was music acts like Sufjan Stevens, Counting Crows, U2, Radiohead and Bob Dylan. In the middle were musicians like The Eagles, John Legend, Maroon 5, Elton John, Johnny Cash and Rascal Flatts. The lowest placing musicians for the “music that makes you dumb” list included Jay Z, Beyoncé, and Lil’ Wayne was the worst of the worst.
Interestingly enough, lower SAT scores corresponded to both Gospel and Hip Hop music, although Jazz and Pop were not much better. Rap and Rock were in the same range as Classical. Jay Z and Beyoncé fans will probably be outraged to hear that Country music placed higher for intelligence. Techno listeners placed ahead of them all, but they’re probably too busy bobbing their heads to the beat to care about the controversy.
