Smart Tunes

A student at Caltech had some fun correlating SAT scores to the kind of music people listen to. People who listened to Beethoven had the highest SAT scores, with their lowest mark a full 50 points higher than the highest score of the next group, fans of indie rocker/songwriter Sufjian Stevens.

People who listened to rapper Li'l Wayne were grouped lowest of all, some five hundred points below the long-hairs tapping their toes to the Moonlight Sonata. Of course the survey was random and not very scientific, as the developer admits (He did an earlier similar survey using college SAT scores and books). But it does make you wonder. Are people who listen to, say, Billy Joel smarter because of it and people who listen to, say, Fall Out Boy dumber because they do? Or were they already smart and/or dumb, which influenced the music they chose?

But again, because it's such a random sampling, it's hard to say this survey actually suggests anything substantial. For example, even though the average SAT score for the Beethoven listener is 1371, the average SAT score for classical music listeners in general is 978, below that of those who favor Justin Timberlake. And I know people who listen to classical music have to be smarter than anyone who would choose to listen to Justin Timberlake.