According to science, metal is the most “intelligent” genre of music you can listen to - and these are its most intelligent bands

Black Sabbath, Megadeth and Slayer — (Image credit: Chris Walter/WireImage, Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images, Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

A new study has examined which artists encourage more intelligence and positivity.

According to Prodigy, who orchestrated the study by examining the lyrics of various musical acts, metal has been deemed the most 'intelligent' genre, ranking above EDM, country, hip-hop, pop, R&B and rock. In other words, metal music exhibits the most intelligent lyrics, ranking at an average of 41% in terms of lexical diversity.

Staying within the metal category, at the top of the list is Black Sabbath, who ranked at 52% with the most lexical diversity, followed by Slayer with 51% and Megadeth with 45%.

Across all genres, Sabbath still sit at the top spot, but share the honour with Pink Floyd, who also have a lexical diversity of 52%. Other artists who rank in the top 20 list include the aforementioned Slayer and Megadeth, as well as The Eagles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Iron Maiden, Radiohead and Motorhead.

In spite of metal's clever lyrics, the genre has been listed as having the most negative subject matter, ranking in at last place at the 8th spot (ranked out of 10). The most positive genre was pop, followed by country.

Based on their average sentiment score, metal artists take up the top four spots on the negativity chart (ranked out of 10), leading with Slayer at 1st place, with Iron Maiden, Slipknot and System Of A Down taking up the following three positions. Metallica also appear on the list, but in 8th place.

To conduct the study, Prodigy collated a list of today's top Billboard artists as well as popular artists from each decade, and analysed the lyrics of 10 songs from each artists to calculate their level of sentiment and lexical diversity.

They also examined what genres children listen to the most while studying, the top genres parents have banned (spoiler, it's not metal!), how music impacts productivity, the percentage of music fans who have received a raise or promotion at work recently (organised by genre) and more.

Check out the full study on the Prodigy website.

Artists

Liz manages Louder's social media channels and works on keeping the sites up to date with the latest news from the world of rock and metal. Prior to joining Louder as a full time staff writer, she completed a Diploma with the National Council for the Training of Journalists and received a First Class Honours Degree in Popular Music Journalism. She enjoys writing about anything from neo-glam rock to stoner, doom and progressive metal, and loves celebrating women in music.