Heavy Metal! It's for smart People!

[Captain Socks]

According to this study http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2007/03/21/nmetal21.xml many gifted children, including myself, consider themselves metalheads. But I'm really a classic rocker, meaning I am also a traditional metalhead. I listen to bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. No death metal for me! But yeah, I've known this all along. And I'm not sullen or "socially alienated" either.

[Queen Bruin]

As a metalhead married to a metalhead musician (OK, so he cut his hair actually just today, does he still have shred cred?), I am of course not surprised. My Latin teacher even said once, "The metal kids are always more on the ball."

[Miller]

It's all the head-banging. Gets the brain all fizzy.

[ultrafilter]

"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

[lissener]

What about that study that showed that rats who listened to classical music ran mazes better than rats who listened to metal?

[KneadToKnow]

I listen to bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and Van Halen.
That's a pretty wide swath, dude.

[fessie]

Those findings are consistent with my personal experience (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/search.php?searchid=2549059) (even though he DID drag me to concerts by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica and Megadeth) (I actually knew some of the lyrics to that last one). I wish my husband would post here more often.

[Queen Bruin]

What about that study that showed that rats who listened to classical music ran mazes better than rats who listened to metal?
What about it?

[fessie]

I suspect the metal-head rats just jumped the hell outta the box.

[KneadToKnow]

What I really find funny is that despite the loudly-professed opinions of certain kids my age in high school, I've seen no evidnece whatsoever that people who listen to Echo and the Bunnymen have any intellectual superiority.

[ultrafilter]

What about that study that showed that rats who listened to classical music ran mazes better than rats who listened to metal?

Are you a rat?

[ZebraShaSha]

If you include AC/DC, then how many teenagers mostly listen to heavy metal? A vast majority. Therefore, a vast majority of smart teenage kids would be expected to listen to the same kind of thing, no? A similar study would find that dumb kids listened to Black Sabbath to help cope with the pressures of being dumb (glue-sniffing induced or not, like most of my metal friends). Average kids might listen to metal to deal with the pressures of one day having to live in a suburb.

A better question is how many kinds of music categories can the vast majority of teenagers name. Chances are, you'll get country, rap, heavy metal or classic rock, maybe emo, then the intellectual stuff kids hate like jazz and classical. Now break it down into how many of these categories the kids actually listen to and you'll hear how they listen to "everything except for rap and country" or they just listen to rap. Everything, of course, is what is on the radio and classic rock, which doesn't sound as cool as heavy metal.

[Larry Borgia]

What about that study that showed that rats who listened to classical music ran mazes better than rats who listened to metal?The metalhead rats were all "Why the fuck should I run this fucking maze for the fucking man!?"

[Scissorjack]

What about that study that showed that rats who listened to classical music ran mazes better than rats who listened to metal?

Did they play any Ratt?

[WordMan]

I am inclined to think that, rather than metal, per se, it is more about actively listening to music, period. There is something to be said for having a music that you obsess about as a kid. The music I am sure does good things for your brain and you can fantasize about being in the band and getting away from your awful high school existence, etc. Not that I have any firsthand experience with this at all...

[MrDibble]

I think watching a few episodes of The Osbournes is all that's needed to disprove the OP's theory.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Metal is more oriented towards instrumentation and composition than singing or dancing. A lot of it uses unusual time signatures, more challenging explorations of dissonance and more complex arrangements. It has some of the same qualities as jazz in what it requires from the listener. It requires a more abstract and cerebral sensibility than listening to pop. It aways appealed to me for that reason. Metal heads get tagged with a dumb image, but playing that music actually requires a decent grasp of theory (even if it's only intuitive). Vocal oriented pop is too simple, too surfacy, too musically shallow to engage me. Pop country is the worst of all. I'd bet that pop country has the dumbest fans of all. It's the most insubstantial music out there.

This article is no surprise to me. Most every serious metal guitarist I ever jammed with was pretty bright (drummers are a different matter).

[mr. jp]

I dont see how that study says anything good about listening to heavy metal.


The researchers surveyed 1,057 members of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth - a body whose 120,000 student members are within the top five per cent academically in the 11-19 age range.

Asked for their favourite type of music, 39 per cent said rock, 18 per cent R&B and 14 per cent pop. Six per cent said heavy metal and a third rated it in their top five genres.


Only 6% have metal as their favorite genre? Compared to how many non-gifted children? Why is this data considered positive for heavy metal?

[Drunky Smurf]

I think watching a few episodes of The Osbournes is all that's needed to disprove the OP's theory.
True, if your into metal and you have been doing drugs for 30 years.

[Lord Ashtar]

What about that study that showed that rats who listened to classical music ran mazes better than rats who listened to metal?
I don't know about that one, but I seem to remember a study that showed that plants in a greenhouse that played metal grew faster and stronger than plants in other greenhouses classical playing in the background. They also had one that played a man talking, another that played a woman talking, and one with near silence.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

I don't know about that one, but I seem to remember a study that showed that plants in a greenhouse that played metal grew faster and stronger than plants in other greenhouses classical playing in the background. They also had one that played a man talking, another that played a woman talking, and one with near silence.
They did something similar on Mythbusters. The plants that were exposed to death metal did the best.

[pravnik]

This article is no surprise to me. Most every serious metal guitarist I ever jammed with was pretty bright (drummers are a different matter).Old musician's joke:
Q: How do you know when the stage is level?
A: The drummer's drooling out of both sides of his mouth. :D

[Trunk]

Metal is more oriented towards instrumentation and composition than singing or dancing. A lot of it uses unusual time signatures, more challenging explorations of dissonance and more complex arrangements. It has some of the same qualities as jazz in what it requires from the listener. It requires a more abstract and cerebral sensibility than listening to pop. It aways appealed to me for that reason. Metal heads get tagged with a dumb image, but playing that music actually requires a decent grasp of theory (even if it's only intuitive). Vocal oriented pop is too simple, too surfacy, too musically shallow to engage me. Pop country is the worst of all. I'd bet that pop country has the dumbest fans of all. It's the most insubstantial music out there.
Well said. I think that captures a lot of it.

[WarmNPrickly]

I think watching a few episodes of The Osbournes is all that's needed to disprove the OP's theory.

Quite to the contrary, it demonstrates quite clearly that heavy metal has a prophylactic effect on the brain. With all the drugs he did, he should be a zombie. Instead, we see a person that occassionally strings as many as four words together in meaningful context.

[Thudlow Boink]

If you include AC/DC, then how many teenagers mostly listen to heavy metal? A vast majority.Are the Kids These Days still listening to AC/DC?

[WordMan]

Are the Kids These Days still listening to AC/DC?


You'd be surprised. I just showed the 14-year-old kid across the street how to play Problem Child...

Not that AC/DC is really metal, per se - to me, they are hard rock, but for the purposes of this thread and to answer your question, there's no need to quibble...

I see lots of kids with Hendrix, Zep and other T-shirts.

[Thudlow Boink]

I see lots of kids with Hendrix, Zep and other T-shirts.Come to think of it, I see kids with AC/DC shirts too (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/14/Butt-headprofile.jpg), but that doesn't necessarily support the OP's thesis. :)

[Captain Socks]

I think watching a few episodes of The Osbournes is all that's needed to disprove the OP's theory.

Yeah, but I'm assuming these are not hard-drinking druggie teenagers. :D

[Taber]

What about that study that showed that rats who listened to classical music ran mazes better than rats who listened to metal?

This study, if accurate, shows that smart people tend to prefer metal.
The rat study, if accurate, shows that metal doesn't make you smarter.

no contradictions between the two studies.

[Captain Socks]

Are the Kids These Days still listening to AC/DC?
Myself, my friend, and, uhhhhh, I'm kind of drawing a blank after that. I'm sure they're out there, but I cant find them.

[Dung Beetle]

I know. :)

[Captain Socks]

Plus, sometimes it can even get downright intellectual. Iron Maiden will sometimes just put long old poems to music.

[Justin_Bailey]

Asked for their favourite type of music, 39 percent said rock, 18 percent R&B and 14 percent pop. Six per cent said heavy metal and a third rated it in their top five genres.

The article seems to be slanted towards the heavy metal thing (the author's probably a metalhead), but the overall numbers look pretty similar to what I think the breakout would be for any random set of 1,000 high schoolers.

So I guess heavy metal fans aren't smart.

Some are smart, some are average and 50 percent are below average!

I guess most heavy metal fans are pretty stupid huh? :p

[Captain Socks]

(OK, so he cut his hair actually just today, does he still have shred cred?)
That depends, does Lars Ulrich still have shred cred?

[Matt Holck]

is not heavy metal about
a loud driving based
overlaid by a tenor/soprano electro-sustained guitar notes

[Rachael Rage]

Well, the only band I know to not only actively promote literacy but to have that as the basis of thier entire oeuvre is the extremely heavy metal band BlöödHag. As their best t-shirt says: "The Faster You Go Deaf, the More Time You Have to Read."

All of their songs are about science fiction authors. During live shows the singer will talk a little about the authors (since you can't, you know, actually understand the lyrics) and they pelt their audiences with paperback books. They get mad if any of the books are thrown back - they're meant to be taken home and read.

My favorite of their album titles is "Appetite for Deconstruction" but the most recent - "Hell Bent for Letters" - is pretty good too.

[Rachael Rage]

er...like any good metal head, I know how to spell their.

[Justin_Bailey]

Wow, I just looked on Wikipedia and this Bloodhag is a real band.

I don't know whether to be frightened or impressed...

[Rachael Rage]

Wow, I just looked on Wikipedia and this Bloodhag is a real band.

I don't know whether to be frightened or impressed... I'm not nearly smart enough to make up something that good:

BlöödHag plays a public library in Queens, NY (http://flickr.com/photos/gingerrox/129294686/in/set-72057594108278086/)

From "Douglas Adams" (Hell Bent for Letters):
His work is permanently burned into every young nerd's mind
The real Hitchhiker's Guide's being compiled online

From "Anne McCaffrey" (Hell Bent for Letters):
Chauvanistic SF was Anne's complaint
Women did more than scream and faint
Restoree restored reader's faith: McCaffrey's magic on display!