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A new study is claiming that Canadian rockers Nickelback have ‘more intelligent’ lyrics than their contemporaries, including the Foo Fighters and Linkin Park.

Seatsmart’s Andrew Powell-Morse analyzed the lyrics of 225 songs that spent at least three weeks at Number One in Billboard’s pop, rock, country and hip-hop charts. His findings include the discovery that country music has the “smartest” songs over the last decade (followed in order by rock, pop and hip-hop/R&B), dubbing Blake Shelton’s 2010 hit “All About Tonight” the smartest song with an average grade level of 5.8.

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Nickelback edged out Linkin Park, Seether and the Foo Fighters for the smartest rock act, while fellow Canadians Three Days Grace have the honour of producing the dumbest song of the decade in the form of 2010’s “The Good Life.”

Powell-Morse conceded “this data doesn’t touch on the meaning of a song, the metaphors, how the words connect with the artist’s personal story, etc. to create deeper meaning.” Adding that country music’s general intelligence was bolstered by the lack of “oh” and “yeahs,” while a song like Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Dani California” (the highest ranking rock song) was helped by the number of symbols singer Anthony Kiedis spits out.

The study also claims that “men talk more (higher word count), but women have slightly more intelligent things to say (higher average grade level).”