Nickelback’s lyrics are more intelligent that those of Foo Fighters, Linkin Park and Avenged Sevenfold, a scientist claims.
Andrew Powell-Morse of Seatsmart used a tool called the Readability Score to work out which genre and artists produce the smartest words
He says the results suggest that Nickelback lyrics require a third-grade American education to comprehend – while A7X can be understood in second grade.
Powell-Morse says: “I plugged in song lyrics, and out of the machine popped average grade level, word count, and other very interesting metrics.”He analysed 225 songs across the rock, pop, country and R&B/hip-hop genres, using tracks that spent at least three weeks at the top of the Billboard charts. “The Canadian rock band so many love to hate manage to get the longest and most sophisticated lyrics in the rock category,” he says.
But he adds: “So what if popular music doesn’t tend to lend itself to sophistication. Are most of these songs still great? Definitely.”
Country ranked as the most intelligent genre, which Powell-Morse puts down to the relative lack of repeated use of words such as “oh” and “yeah”. It’s aided by the frequent use of long words such as “hallelujah, cigarettes and hillbilly,” and “Cincinnati, Mississippi, and Louisiana.”
Meanwhile, Australian police joined the Nickelback hate brigade yesterday by posting a mock official warning online. Brisbane cops issues a “Be On LookOut” alert for the band, who are currently on tour Down Under, saying: “Urgent police warning: Men matching this description expected to be committing musical crimes in Boondall tonight.”
The band, who released eighth album No Fixed Address last year, return to the UK in November – despite an attempt to have them banned from the country.
