Stupid Music, Stupid People

Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People who listen to Reggaeton are 20% more stupid than those who listen to rock or classical music. That’s not a prejudice stated out loud, but the result of research conducted on 5,000 thousands of subjects by the University of Bamako (Mali). Of course, few people have heard of the University of Bamako and their results don’t have the credibility of Harvard. I am not even sure the paper actually exists, even though several newspapers in South America have apparently believed it does.

Of course, Reggaeton musicians have quickly pointed out that the correlation may be due to the socioeconomic circumstances of those who listen this this kind of music. That is: uneducated people tend to be less smart and also to like reggaeton. But why would they? Why would uneducated people prefer reggaeton to Bohemian Rhapsody? Is it cheaper than illegally downloading some other kind of music? Do they have a special offer on Spotify?

The aforementioned, probably bogus research goes in line with other, more lighthearted approximations to the subject in which SAT scores of several participants were compared to the bands they liked in their myspace profile. Whether SAT scores are a reliable measure of intelligence, though, remains to be seen.

But stupid people do like dumb music. That’s just common sense. Some music is so overly repetitive and mind-numbing that it can only be endured if the person is likely to forget the last verse as soon as they hear it. Any mildly intelligent person would be bored after 30 seconds, then appalled. Intelligence is the capacity to get bored easily. Stupidity is the gift of being constantly amazed.

And now for a personal comment. The stupidest song I’ve ever heard is “the lemon song,” which became the summer hit in Spain

This image shows a whole and a cut lemon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

around five years ago, maybe more. Its lyrics went like this: “one lemon and half a lemon, two lemons and half a lemon” and so on until it reached a great number of lemons. The song’s success correlates perfectly to the sorry state of my country nowadays. Some may even say we had it coming. The author, by the way, ended up killing himself: apparently, he was a serious musician who had made that song as a joke and couldn’t bear what its success told him about human nature. Maybe he should’ve moved to England.

Anyway, so much for music and stupidity. Do you think there’s a correlation? What is the stupidest song you’ve ever heard?