I really enjoyed “Music That Makes You Dumb“, an admittedly psuedo-scientific analysis of intelligence vs musical preferences. Basically, one Virgil Griffith has assembled data on music taste based on U.S. college campuses, then compared that data with the high school scores required to get into each college to produce an assessment of the correlation between ‘intelligence’ (as evidenced by academic performance in high school) and taste.
On the whole, the higher end of the scale matches with my personal tastes (Dylan, Ben Folds, Pink Floyd, Radiohead), so I think we can safely conclude that this is 100% accurate and totally scientifically valid. One thing I did find surprising was that jazz falls somewhere in the lower-middle region of the scale, given that most jazz people seem to me to be highly skilled musicians and often very knowledgable about not only music but many other aspects of culture. On reflection, though, it occurs to me that my jazz playing/listening friends and acquaintances tend to struggle in structured environments (e.g. the final year of high school) and also tend to vigorously pursue, er, alternative studies, such as the study of drug and alcohol abuse through first hand experience, to perfect their art.
“Books that Make You Dumb” is also interesting, although it lacks the pretty coloured graphs of the musical variant. Dan Brown and The Holy Bible both appear at the end of the spectrum you would expect, although I was very surprised to see “The Alchemist” in the top 10, a novel I found trite, preachy and simplistic in every respect.
I read Fahrenheit 451, which rated worse than the Bible — I’m doomed!
Um. Why is Beethoven a million miles the the right, but “Classical” all the way to the left!?
That means “classical east-side gangsta rap”, clearly.
I think the problem with the book one is that 90% of the books have a fair degree of literary merit, so it’s not that revealing to rank them in this way. I wish they’d included more popular-but-bad stuff.
I was nodding in agreement with some of the mainstream music positions on the graph, but I think a few more data points for jazz could have made it more meaningful. It’s tricky though, since there’s not much consensus as to the actual meaning of the word “jazz” these days.
I’ve given a lot of thought to the jazz/”alternative studies” connection. I think hedonism is a given, but that isn’t the end of the story. An altered mental state can help us look at the subject of whatever creative form we’re using from different perspectives. Finding new ways to play old songs is a big part of jazz.
Also, there’s more structure to most jazz than many people realize, and I sometimes wonder if mainstream music conditions people to pay attention only to the top lines (usually the vocalist or lead guitar.) In jazz the harmonic form is often stated most clearly in the the lower parts (esp. bass.) The best jazzers preserve the structure and subvert it at the same time.
PS – Anyone see Watchmen yet? The atrocity Paul blogged about earlier plays over the closing credits. When you see the final shot of Rorschach’s journal, you must leave the theater.
Haven’t seen Watchmen yet but was considering it – is it actually worth it, even if I don’t know/care about the graphic novels?
As for the jazz thing – I think the same could be said of other artistic/creative endeavours. Maybe we need to radically revise the way these things are taught: your homework tonight is to have an extremely intense and visceral emotional experience, your group project is a H.S. Thompson style road trip through the hinterland of your country, your final exam is to confront two or more of your personal demons with a complete stranger whilst drinking absinthe in a bar at 3am…
I still think that engineers, doctors, lawyers etc should be required to take some arts subjects at university. This would both add some rigour to the arts faculty and expose these people (many of whom assume they are smart and arts people are not) to ways of thinking which are alien to them but very important nonetheless.
You should let the students decide their homework by chance, using dice…
. . . with several random elements?
“Construct a legal defense for John Coltrane’s minor 3rd principle, incorporating Faraday’s law of induction and with reference to Jorge Luis Gogol’s “V for Batwatch: The Dark Crystal”. I think I could tackle that one with a few absinthes under my belt.
I like Paul’s idea, performing arts departments I’ve been associated with could certainly use some fresh perspectives and vigour, and the arty types could pick up some good stuff too (eg. maybe sound waveform physics, very handy for musicians.)
Re Watchmen, I’d be very interested in your non-GN-reader’s take on it, and I think you’ll dig some of the song settings (except for “Hallelujah”.) The alternate history thing is quite fun. You won’t hear anyone yell “Nixon’s back!” in this movie . . . BECAUSE HE NEVER LEFT.
I just read a Hunter S Thompson compendium, it kinda made me sorry I never lived through the Nixon administration – it must have been so much fun, what with the optimal combination of pure evil and total incompetence.
It must have been more fun that the GWB era of evil mixed with marginal degrees of efficiency.
The Nixon years sound like a hilarious comedy about a bunch of incompetent bank robbers who somehow got mistaken for the President and his advisers. In fact, we should make a movie like that.
One thing I found interesting was that HST was on very good terms with Pat Buchanan and a bunch of other Nixonistas. Crazy times, can’t see it happening these days.