© Virgil GriffithSweet note ... Lovers of Beethoven will be pleased to know they top the pile in intelligence
Love Beyonce? You're in major strife. And if you love the music of the Lord, the news is bad for you, too.
A California Tech student has matched music preferences to US high school marks, and come up with correlations that will send brainiacs scurrying for their iPods.
PhD student Virgil Griffith's "somewhat unscientific" study showed the smartest students listened to Beethoven, Counting Crows and Sufjan Stevens. Radiohead and Ben Folds Five also appealed to big brains.
Lil' Wayne, Beyonce and Soca took the cringeworthy honours at the other end of the scale.
But before you relax, consider this: jazz, gospel and pop were all well down the ladder - and even classical music was behind the general pack, trailing acts like Snow Patrol and Kanye West.
According to the data, people who listen to "indie" music were the smartest.
Click here to see the full graph.
AC/DC was the only Australian band to feature, landing just below the average SAT mark.
The poll won't be music to the ears of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has a penchant for the classics. Malcolm Turnbull might want to update his preferences too: Last year, he revealed he had a soft spot for rock & roll, but that leaves him in the lower third of the group polled by Griffith.
No such problems for US President Barack Obama - who reportedly has an IQ of around 130. One of his favourite artists, Bob Dylan, is among the top eight performers.
He has an unlikely intellectual equal in Miley Cyrus, whose love for U2 rockets her up in the smarts stakes.
Despite the poor showing of the classics, Dean of the Institute of Music, Dr Ras Marcellino, said music could play a part in developing intelligence.
He cited the "Mozart factor", where parents play classical music to young children as mental stimulation.
"People believe that if you played them Mozart their intelligence would improve. There's nothing conclusive but it looks likely," Dr Marcellino said.
And appreciation of genteel classical tunes was no measure of brain power, he said.
"You get these kids who listen to pretty full on death metal, and then they go off and do high level mathematics and computing," he said.
Dr Marcellino, who is a fan of Coldplay, laughed when told he would have middle-of-the-road intelligence.
Mr Griffiths says his favourite band is Daft Punk and he has "recently been listening most to music by the fine Australian musician Scott Matthew."
Funnily enough, neither of them made it onto his graph.
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