Are people listening to extreme music brighter than common people?

I came across this article on blabbermouth.net, and I appear to be part of the top 5 percent of the nation's gifted and talented youngsters, even though I'm not from this nation, and I'm not a youngster (more like a padawan in his glorious 30s).

Does this mean 95% of the rest of the world should bow to our superior intellect? I tend to believe so, but I'd like your opinion nonetheless...

I was a genius and I didn't know it! Thanks to 20+ years of listening to Cannibal Corpse, Nile, Emperor, Dying Fetus and others...

ARTICLE:

Jonathan Brown of U.K.'s The Independent reports:

Heavy metal has long been saddled with a reputation for attracting admirers more interested in decibels than Descartes. New research, however, promises to rescue the genre from the mosh pit of intellectual obscurity.

A study has revealed that death metal and thrash bands such as SLAYER and SLIPKNOT produce the music of choice for today's brightest youngsters.

A survey which was carried out among students at the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth, a cohort drawn from the top 5 per cent of the nation's youngsters, drew praise for metal's "visceral brutality" with more than a third rating it among their favourite styles. Researchers admitted they were surprised to find that "intelligent" genres traditionally associated with the precociously bright, such as classical and jazz, were the least popular.

What they discovered instead was that youngsters liked to let off steam to hardcore sounds, particularly if it had an emotionally charged or overtly political message behind it. One respondent said: "You can't really jump your anger into the floor and listen to music at the same time with other types of music."

Stuart Cadwallader of the University of Warwick, which conducted the survey, said heavy metal was found to provide a form of "catharsis", particularly for those with low self-esteem.

They found the aggressive music a useful conduit for their frustrations and anger, according to the findings revealed at the British Psychological Society conference in York yesterday.

Mr. Cadwallader said this intellectual elite often found themselves facing situations and issues not encountered by less able students.

"Perhaps the pressure associated with being gifted and talented can be temporarily forgotten with the aid of music," he said.


Source: http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=69092
16,214 views 39 replies
Reply #1 Top
sweet! maybe my love for pig destroyer and Cattle Decapitation Made me bright? awesmoness!

nothing makes me feel smarter than jamming to some Humanure!

btw, what's your favorite nile song?
Reply #2 Top
Sounds like a lot of psycho babel to me.
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Reply #3 Top
Sounds like a lot of psycho babel to me


Sounds like a babbling psycho to me....
Reply #4 Top
Hey BuddhaV10, my favorite has to be "Black seeds of vengeance", from the same-titled album. That was my first exposure to Nile when it came out, and whoa! This song still has the same effect on me -> Grin up to the ears  
Otherwise, one of my favorite DM song would be "Hammer smashed face" from Cannibal, even though I prefer George Fisher as singer.
what about you?

As far as Cattle Decapitation is concerned, it's GrindCore, not Death, so are you as bright as us Death listeners?   Just kidding. Cattle Decapitation is cool (especially the uncensored "Humanure" cover), but I've never listened to Pig Destroyer (I understand it's GrindCore as well). I'll have to get one of their LPs soon it seems, or I'll look like a newbie.
Reply #5 Top

A study has revealed that death metal and thrash bands such as SLAYER and SLIPKNOT produce the music of choice for today's brightest youngsters.

...and from the 'brightest' comes the suicidal....

Thrash Metal simply has a superfluous 'h' [the first one].

Jafo is a slobbering imbecile...and has enjoyed 'heavy metal' since BEFORE the term was coined....

Reply #6 Top
Sir Lantec,
the funniest thing is when reading Blabbermouth users comments, you can see how hard they try to hide the fact that they have a superior intellect. And it works! You are tricked into believing that they are a bunch of banana eating apes, while really they could create devices to harness the power of cold fusion.
Reply #7 Top
ou are tricked into believing that they are a bunch of banana eating apes


i think i fall into that category
Reply #8 Top
Simply "Sailing The Seas of Cheese"...
you'll figure it out
Reply #9 Top
Jafo, "...and from the 'brightest' comes the suicidal....", that is sadly also true.

As far as "and have enjoyed 'heavy metal' since BEFORE the term was coined", what do you mean? I don't think Frank Sinatra can be coined Heavy Metal, but I can be wrong...
Reply #11 Top
Zubaz hunts up Tommy the Cat
Reply #12 Top
As far as "and have enjoyed 'heavy metal' since BEFORE the term was coined", what do you mean? I don't think Frank Sinatra can be coined Heavy Metal, but I can be wrong...


Just to set the record strait.
The Kinks started the whole thing with a single song: their first hit, "You Really Got Me. The term "Heavy Metal" had not been coined yet.
Reply #13 Top
I'm think I saw a study somewhere which showed Celine Dion was the favourite amongst those from the lower end of the gene pool...
Reply #14 Top
yes, cycoced, Jerry WAS a race car driver...
Reply #15 Top
Did you go to the next page to see the other article about Jerry Springer watchers being intelligent also?   
Reply #16 Top
missed that one...but saw the one where Bat Boy was being recruited for the war on terrorism...
Reply #17 Top
I could tend to agree with the sumation...

metal tells you to rage against the machine. and be your own person no mater what others think..

RAP on the other hand tells kids to do/sell drugs ,steal, treat women as objects, kill each other for shoes..etc...while as an adult i listen to both old school rap like will smith and old metal like metallica and maiden and others like boingo, the cure... it is clear to see the message of most rap today is "break the law" and "die early"...It just shows the infulence POP culture has in shaping impressionable youths...

it maybe as simple of a matter of metal heads possibly tend to out live the rap listeners .. as we metal heads arent encouraged by the music industry to "Buss a cap" in each other.....

i have yet to hear of a drive by where they had DIO cranked up while blasting at each other....


As far as "and have enjoyed 'heavy metal' since BEFORE the term was coined", what do you mean? I don't think Frank Sinatra can be coined Heavy Metal, but I can be wrong...


I was thinking more along the lines of Mozart inconcert live.... but this works to..


Reply #18 Top
mE AM Rush fan...Yes,Vai,Hendrix,Stevie,Eric Johnson,Satriani...I.R.semi-intelektshual.  
Reply #19 Top
mE AM Rush fan...Yes,Vai,Hendrix,Stevie,Eric Johnson,Satriani...I.R.semi-intelektshual.  


there are exceptions to every rule ...     J/K hehe
Reply #20 Top
Bandit4edu, did you know that the Primus guitarist used to be in a band called "Possessed", which pioneered the whole Death Metal scene back in 86? They should create a Trivial Pursuit Metal edition, I would finally win at this game...
Reply #21 Top
Fuzzy logic, Celine Dion is from Quebec, hence french-speaking as mother tongue, therefore, you hit the rock bottom of the gene pool just because of the langage. I know what I'm talking about, I'm french, you can feed French people hay, they won't see the difference... Metal saved me, and roughly 5% of the French population, but what about the rest? I had to migrate to Switzerland...   
Reply #22 Top
HG_Eliminator, I would have to agree with you on one point: People listening to Rap/Hip-hop tend to be the ones to cause violence in the streets, like mugging people, insulting and looking for trouble for any reason, at least in Europe. This for me is a sign of a sub-zero IQ. Just to be clear, I don't mean that because you listen to this kind of music makes you a brainless violent ape. On the other hand, listening to Metal makes you one of the brightest youngsters, science proves it...

"RAP on the other hand tells kids to do/sell drugs ,steal, treat women as objects, kill each other for shoes..etc..."

Well, I don't know if you've listened to really extreme stuff like XXXManiacs or other bands I don't even dare to write the name here, but they do sometimes lack the respect women deserve, to put it cleanly...  

Reply #23 Top
I knew listening to Cradle of Filth, Bathory and Anal Cunt was a good idea.

Now to go and laugh at all the boyband fans for being thick.

Victory is mine.
Reply #24 Top
The world is or will be full of wealthy and powerful metalheads?   
Reply #25 Top
IR Brainiac, I do listen to other stuff as well, Hendrix, Vai and Satriani are obviously good choices, I do also like Led Zeppelin, Velvet Underground, the Who, Bowie's early stuff (one may say the gay stuff), and so on... So don't worry, being the top of the crop doesn't mean you have to restrict yourself musically.