Here’s something that is sure to get the hairs up on some peoples’ backs. Virgil Griffith, the creator of WikiScanner and a grad student from CalTech did some research which studied the relationship between musical styles and bands and the SAT scores of the people who listened to them. He found that the smartest students listened to Beethoven (average SAT of 1371) and the students who rung in at the bottom of the SAT scores listened to Lil’ Wayne (average SAT of 889).

The average SAT score is around the 1000-1100 mark, and unsurprisingly most bands’ listeners fit into this range.

Of course the (unanswered) question is: What is the relationship?

Do you choose music based on your intelligence? Surely your personality has something to do with musical tastes, doesn’t it? Can listening to certain types of music make you dumb or smart? Do people gravitate towards a certain type of music because they are smart and think that it will make them seem smarter?

I’ll leave that for you to decide. In the meantime, here’s the chart:

Where does your Music Rank?