(no subject)

[andrew_jorgensen]

From The Minor Fall, The Major Lift, a link to an article about study by University of Texas psychologists matching pop-music preferences to personality traits. Being that I own more music than personality, this is a lot more interesting to me than Enneagrams. Here are the examples they give:

Bob Dylan

Blowin' in the Wind: Inventive, solid, open to new experiences, consider themselves to be intelligent, good conversationalists, but not too clever at maths or analytical stuff. Politically liberal, but not very sporty. Unlikely to be depressed.

Beethoven

Ode to Joy: Active imagination, values aesthetic experiences, inventive, tolerant of others, consider themselves to be intelligent, and reject conservative ideals. Least likely to say something without thinking first.

Rolling Stones

Brown Sugar: Agreeable, open to new experiences, athletic, intelligent, with good verbal skills, and tend to be dominant in interpersonal relationships.

REM

It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine): Not neurotic, curious about different things. Enjoy taking risks, physically active and intelligent. May be prone to depression.

Jennifer Lopez

I'm Real: Conventional, upbeat, cheerful, socially outgoing, reliable, enjoy helping others, and see themselves as physically attractive.

Barry White

Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe: A tendency to be talkative and full of energy. They are also forgiving, and have a strong dislike of conservatism.

Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes

If You Don't Know Me By Now: Extrovert, agreeable, also flirtatious with a tendency to express their feelings straight away. Liberal and athletic, and on the whole think of themselves as pretty attractive.

Well now. I only own the Beethoven, Stones, Barry White and Harold Melvin, though I own other works by Dylan and REM, but I have to say I like everything on this except the J.Lo (which I can't remember even just to hum), and honestly don't prefer one to another. So I'll assume that I'm the opposite of the J.Lo characteristics: I'm unconventional, downbeat, cheerless, introverted, unreliable, completely uninterested in helping other people, and see myself as some sort of slimy-antlered Chaos Demon.

This is remarkably accurate.

Also from the article, an explanation of why we like the music we do: "One possibility is that people choose a tempo of music that is consistent with the heart rate that characterises their current or desired mood." This scares me, because I tend to favor densely polyrhythmic musics such as funk and zydeco, or music with too fast a beat, such as punk; my desired mood seems to be an early death from cardiac arhyhthmia.