Does liking rap music dull your intelligence? No. But it may indicate that your intelligence is already dull.
Like the Americans, the British teens who scored high marks for intelligence were more likely than their peers to prefer instrumental music, but no more likely to enjoy vocal selections.
Now, Beethoven symphonies are far more complex than pop songs, so an obvious explanation for these findings is that smarter people crave more complicated music. But Kanazawa doesn’t think that’s right. His crunching of the data suggests that preference for big-band music “is even more positively correlated” with high intelligence than classical compositions.
“It would be difficult to make the case that big-band music is more cognitively complex than classical music,” he writes. “On the other extreme, as suspected, preference for rap music is significantly negatively correlated with intelligence. However, preference for gospel music is even more strongly negatively correlated with it.
So what is the point of this post? I’m hoping that brain power snobbery will kill off rap. I hate that crap.
And for you gospel music lovers? What can I say? Anyway here is some brain music.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Comments
10 responses to “Does Liking Rap Music Make You Stupid?”
LOL. Love big band music. Like some classical. Hate most rap.
BUT, I like gospel fairly well (the music, not the message). Then again, I also like jazz, country, pop, rock… I guess my IQ must bounce all over the place.
Love classical, big band, tin pan alley,as well as the old time jazz and R&B masters. I can tolerate most of the music of the sixties and seventies but my heart belongs to the fifties and before.
Hmm – forgot R&B and Tin Pan Alley. That too. Is there jazz other than the old time jazz? (Just kidding, but…)
And, M. Simon, totally off topic… Just found this rather interesting post mentioning what they call “moral communists.”
Money quote: “First of all, they persuade people that some Damned Thing is immoral. Then they show that the free market allows or encourages that immoral thing. Then they can say, “well, we wish we didn’t have to do this, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to intervene in that part of the economy, to stop the Damned Thing, sorry.” This leaves the free marketeer floundering around having to try to justify the continuance of the Damned Thing in the name of some nebulous “liberty”. And then they say, “so your selfish desire for “liberty” means this Damned Thing must go on?” and you lose the argument in public, because most of the audience have been persuaded that there is a moral crisis that must be addressed, and you are a heartless asshole who just doesn’t care.”
Kathy,
Thanks for that. It is one of the reasons social conservatives are not reliable when it comes to supporting capitalism. And the socons are in the forefront of promoting moral panics.
Baptists and bootleggers.
I’m not sure those researchers understand music well enough to do science about it.
It would be difficult to make the case that big-band music is more cognitively complex than classical music
I’m not sure, but I suspect it wouldn’t.
The modern orchestral music everyone hates is far more cognitively challenging than any kind of pop is (and that’s why everyone hates it), but “classical music” isn’t. A symphony-long stretch of music randomly plucked from a teenager’s bedroom is very likely to have more unique musical events in it than any symphony older than, say, Wagner. And big-band music is one of the most complex kinds of pop.
This is measurable. Measure it!
It would be difficult to make the case that gospel is less cognitively complex than rap.
That wouldn’t be difficult at all.
Rap has many more unpredictable events in it–non-tonal sounds and off-beat rhythmic emphases. The note you’re about to hear is what gets cognated when you’re listening to music. If you know what’s coming, you don’t spill brain juice predicting it. Gospel is largely sing-along music. You’re supposed to catch on and join in, not be surprised or impressed.
Etc.
Actually there has been research that shows that kind of music (dull, low, thumping) has a corrosive effect on cognitive ability. This would include a lot of what gets called “rock and roll.”
So what is the point of this post? I’m hoping that brain power snobbery will kill off rap. I hate that crap.
Fat chance of that occurring. Brain power snobbery is a lib weapon, not a wingnut weapon. Recall the lib professors who come up with that research which claim that “conservatives are stupid.”
Libs are not going to use brain power snobbery against rap when rap is most popular among two of the greatest prog and lib constituents: blacks and those under 25.
The fact that RAP performers may use musical instruments does not make them musicians. Nor does it make the result “music”. Nor does popularity measure value, except in a marketplace; there are many marketplaces.
I like bits and pieces from most genres of music. Interesting uses of rhythm tend to engage me first, so I like some classical composers who seem to be fixated on the symmetrical math of rhythm – like Bach – as well as Mississippi hill bluesmen (who do a tonal thing with slide guitars, along with a strong backbeat), funk, modern jazz (Miles Davis’s later stuff, and the revolution he spawned) and a lot of mashup styles are engaging, including rockabilly, zydeco, and surf music. Dave Brubeck blows my mind, and innovative rock – like some of Zappa’s work, for instance – does too, because of what it does musically with complex patterns of rhythms and melody, things that don’t dull the mind but force you to pay attention, and if you do there’s a sense of discovery when you figure it out. I have found that good modern music in any genre – stuff I’ll recognize as interesting and a bit complex – is often composed and played by an artist with formal training in one genre, and a hobby in more marketable music; the cross-pollination of great modern jazz artists with gospel and classically trained musicians could fill an encyclopedia – all those swing bands, for instance, had classical musician backbones.
Which brings me to rap. Some of it – not most by any stretch – has interesting musical merits and occasionally interesting social commentary that’s worth a listen. Jay Z’s “99 Problems” is a great example. Despite a slightly misogynistic chorus (comes with the territory I guess), it has a very intelligent discussion of police overreach & the abuse of consent searches in traffic stops. Is it high art? No. It’s still better than a lot of craptastic, punch list rhythms with banal vocals and autotune voiceover. That particular song and the album it came from were produced by Rick Rubin, a former Beastie Boy – white Jewish rappers who pioneered sampling riffs from rock, country, or even classical and repurposing other forms of music into hip hop or dance music. Rubin in turn has produced more better country, rock, jazz and blues artists than just about anybody producing today, with the possible exception of the ubiquitous Quincy Jones. Rubin also produced Johnny Cash’s landmark American Music recordings, which feature among the definitive highpoints of Cash’s long career. What’s Rubin know about music that the single genre music fans don’t? I’ll even admit to listening to the politically insane Rage Against the Machine from time to time; there’s a loud 14 year old moron somewhere inside me at RATM reaches that 14 year old. So does Mahler’s take on Beethoven, if that means anything to ya. And check out Cake if you’re looking for engaging pop with intelligent lyrics. Worthwhile pop music, maybe even in genres you wouldn’t expect, is out there; you just have to dig around for it, you won’t hear much on the radio. And lord knows, most of the really good musical stuff happens locally, never winds up getting recorded.
& sorry for consecutive posts – yeah, I know hip hop is pretty uncouth. So is some old school country, and so is bourbon, and so is Chaucer, and Shakespeare is basically a long series of dirty puns and double entendres, just filthy stuff. When it’s not showy, it’s an honest window into the underclass. That’s no way to live, but just because somebody is low rent, it doesn’t mean they can’t make good quality art. Just means that the aesthetic often isn’t going to comport with… classical values.