Study Reveals Pop Music Fans Not Very Intelligent

reply to post by fooffstarr


That piece by Andy McKee is nothing short of Magick. Beautiful. Being a guitar player myself...that was brilliant.

Back on topic:


My wife listens to pop, what she says to me is that all she wants is to be entertained and not have to think when listening to music.

My belief is that music should stimulate that mind, body and soul. If it leaves any of the three out it is incomplete.

reply to post by LoneGunMan

An interesting viewpoint.... and one that I'm not too sure I agree with. I'm more on your wife's side. I listen to music for entertainment purposes. I want to enjoy myself. It may or many not be an 'art form', and such, but if it doesn't entertain me, it is useless to me. As such, the lyrics usually don't play into it for me, except in terms of their entertainment value:
- Pleasing wordplay (a lot or rap music that people here don't seem to like)
- The images the lyrics evoke (Dream Theater, Symphony X, etc.)
- The Concept (Pearl Jam's I Am Mine for example)
- Comedic value (Weird Al's stuff, Homer & Jethro, Jonathan Coulton and even some rap )

Some heavy metal band injects political commentary into their music, to me it just seems self-indulgent and pretentious at best, and it completely ruins the music at worst. And while I enjoy power metal, some of the fantasy lyrics they sing are bordering on embarrassing. "Oh but it has a deeper meaning!" "Oh, but you just don't get it!"- BS! You concentrate hard enough on ANYTHING and you'll get a 'deeper meaning', and this proves it (while also being a great song ).

What happened to music for musics sake? It is a very similar thing with fiction too. When I first read Animal Farm as a kid, without any knowledge of what it was about, I really enjoyed it. Years later, I learned the background, and read it again. While it was an interesting experience, that sort of mental tabulation and correlation seems highly silly ("oh, so the raven is religion, ah!" "Ahaa! The traitor pig is Trotsky, hmmm").

'Deeper meanings' just for the hell of it seems silly. 'Puff the Magic Dragon' is an example that has gotten really bad press, with people getting carried away with supposed 'deeper meanings', when it had none. Thirty years ago I could accept that there were certain things that could not be sung about openly, so hidden meanings could play into it, now that problem doesn't really exist. Anyhow, back then it didn't give the song it was used in any greater value, and it doesn't today either.

Originally posted by drsmooth23

Pop music tends to be simple, both in the music and lyrics. Some people Hate Dream Theater because their style is "Too Complex."

I agree that pop music is extremely simple, and maybe that is more a reflection of its listeners.
I mean, a person does not become intelligent overnight. People start developing their study habits early on and those that are not satisified with mere simplicity go the extra mile to learn as much as they can.
In time they learn how to think analytically and are able to solve problems much easier and quicker than most.

Asians are a good example of this, ... Indie ???

The brain is like a muscle. If I try to develop my muscles by only choosing to lift no more than 15 pounds because it's "simple", I'm not going to get anywhere with my physical development.

Btw, regarding your signature where you ask if the worst song is still better than complete silence, I myself would settle for the silence.

Would you play a game of hoop with the worst basketball player in the world and run the risk of having it affect your style of play, or would you rather not play at all?

HEY KingDogol!!!!!!

???????????????

If you checked out the site you would have seen that somehow Jazz was ranked very low on the intelligence scale. THat surprised me. Jazz should rank somewhere much higher on the scale near bach, beethoven etc... but it was placed right next to some very (in my opinion) unintellectual music.

I have a BA in Fine Arts from Berklee. Where I spent 5 days a week playing jazz music ALL DAY. I know Jazz- it isn't stupid in anyway. how'd you misinterpret my post that badly.

Also, I DONT like Dream Theater.

ANd I know crap loads about music. Trust me I majored in composition and arranging. I listen to some pretty complex and varied stuff and I don't like them.

I appreciate John's guitar playing. He's very talented, not the best but very good. However I also feel that he screws up half his songs by throwing in riffs that throw the song out of harmony (physically-not in a diatonic sense) although...harmonically it would be nice if they stopped screwing with the time signatures ever other measure and stopped modulating the key signature for no real benefit. Some of the stuff he throws in doesn't make sense. I mean I get what he's doing, I just don't agree with it. It's like he's writing a great song or the band has and then he suddenly throws in some out there riff that zappa would have scoffed at for it being so out of context. Like he had some scale or modal exercise he was working on the night before and had to interject it in the song for no good reason. Some see it as genius, most do not.

the other john in the band (myoung) although a great bassplayer is lacking something too. great tapping etc... but in my opinion his tone is wack, and his playing much like masturbation.

Don't get me wrong I like some of their stuff. even covered lots of it. half my friends at Berklee were metal heads. I played in all their bands happily. learned under a glass moon and lots of other dream theater songs even pull me under. Wasn't impressed. Preferred it when we covered satch stuff, vai, and for my benefit wootan.

sorry for the rant just have no clue where your coming from in your post.