With more than 500 of these columns behind me, I suppose I could curate a bunch of my favourites and publish them as a collection. But what to call it? If I had written more columns about smooching, maybe I could call it “Sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll”. In which case I also need more rock ’n’ roll. And probably drugs, too.
The phrase I’ve stolen apparently dates back to the late 1960s and a Life magazine piece about the then-counter culture, in a time when this triumvirate clearly went together.
On the subject of music, I was unfortunate enough to be in Auckland for work during the week of three Coldplay concerts. I wasn’t caught in Coldplay-related traffic, though more by luck than design. Although a lot of people – at least 150,000 if the ticket sales are anything to go by – really like Coldplay, I’m not a big fan.
But I’d definitely go see The Offspring, Linkin Park, or Halestorm if I had the chance. Again. The first concert I went to with my now-wife was The Offspring in Wellington in 1998. Which raises the question: why do we like the music that we do?
Some of this, as usual, is because music can be a symbol of our identities – we listen to types of music that express who we are. Punk music has an aesthetic that reflects something about our group memberships, but also how we see ourselves.
Some of this, as usual, is also a reflection of the architecture of our personality. People who like punk, heavy metal or good ol’ rock music have been found to score higher on measures of sensation seeking. Extroverts tend to like music with an over-the-top beat. People who like pop music are also more extrovert, but also more conscientious and agreeable – sociable and conventional, in short.
It’s unsurprising, then, that if we look at the content of pop music, it tends to be more upbeat and positive in content. According to a study by educational game company Prodigy Education, Marvin Gaye, Celine Dion, Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus all make the top 10 for most positive lyrical content. I imagine that Dr Michael Bonsor, of the University of Sheffield, would agree here, as his research would suggest that Good Vibrations, by The Beach Boys, is the happiest song ever written.
But pop music doesn’t win all the prizes. Surprisingly, analysis of the lexical content (variety of words) of exemplar songs shows metal bands are the most lyrically complex and varied. Slayer and Iron Maiden, for example, might be in the top 10 for most pessimistic content, but they’re also in the top 20 for lexical complexity. Prodigy Education’s study suggests that if we think greater lexical diversity means more intelligent, then the most intelligent band out there is Black Sabbath (closely followed by Pink Floyd and Slayer). Bruce Springsteen comes in at No 5. Sorry, but Coldplay doesn’t even make the top 20 of this chart.
Listening to heavy metal has also been shown to promote higher levels of physiological arousal – it gets your blood pumping. Maybe this is because people who like metal compared to, say, country music tend to have higher resting levels of arousal: they need a bigger buzz to get their blood pumping.
Given my liking for The Offspring and Billy Talent, among others, I feel somewhat validated by even more recent research by the University of California, Berkeley, which found Rock the Casbah, by The Clash, who started out as a punk rock band, is the most energising song around.
And before you label me as some kind of punk/metal-head crossover, I like to think I’ve got eclectic taste. I wasn’t a fan of pop-rockers OneRepublic until I saw them live at the Wellington waterfront arena, and I’ll happily shell out any time they swing by again.
