Is there a correlation between intelligence and what kind of music you like?

Is it possible that you're dumb or smart just based on what kind of music you listen to? That’s the question software application writer Virgin Griffith looked to answer when he recently created a comprehensive infographic that mapped out musical tastes correlated to SAT and ACT scores. The study correlated the results of scores from 1.352 colleges around the U.S. with a survey of student’s musical preferences, based on both individual artists and genres.

So what did Griffith find?

The smartest people liked Beethoven with an average 1371 SAT score. But fans of other bands like Counting Crows (1247 SAT,) Guster (1238 SAT,) Radiohead (1220 SAT,) U2 (1211 SAT,) and Bob Dylan (1197 SAT) also registered the highest. 

Those who liked Norah Jones, The Shins, Beck, Phish, Led Zeppelin, and Billy Joel were also in the top 15 rankings for “smartest music.”

Of course this infographic is far from scientific. Griffith took the results from the previous study of schools with the highest scores and then went on Facebook to match them with the school’s most Liked artists.

Out of the 133 artists or musical genres, which ones correlated with the lowest SAT and ACT scores? That would be Lil Wayne (889 SAT,) Soca (915 SAT,) T.I. (926 SAT,) and Reggaton music (941 SAT) – not exactly music we associate with brain surgeons. 

But there were plenty of surprises in the bottom 10 results, like Gospel music (925 SAT,) Beyonce (932,) Jazz music (946,) and Oldies (961) ranking poorly. 

In fact, Classical music was ranked 119 out of 133 for the “dumbest” forms of music on this list, well ahead of Nickelback at #112, Eminem at #86, and Kanye West at #77. 

So people who love Kanye West are way smarter than those who enjoy Gospel or Classical music? I think if anything, that just shows that Griffith’s infographic needs a little more work in order to be credible, but consider us entertained!

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Here is a full-sized copy of the infographic: