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**1. **John Cage *****– *4’33’’ **
Not massively helpful this one but according to Dr. Nick Perham (known from here on out as the one that ruins all the fun), listening to any music at all whatsoever can seriously impede your ‘serial recall’ skills. 4’ 33” is better known as the completely silent symphony – or four minutes and 33 seoncds of nothing playing at all.
2. Miley Cyrus – We Can’t Stop
According to Dr Emma Gray, songs with 50-80 beats per minute have a calming effect on the brain, meaning you’re able to solve logical problems more easily. What effect the lyrics, ‘To my home girls with the big butts,’ have on your overall IQ, though, no word.
3. Marconi Union – Weightless
Panicking about your work? No worries, a group of scientists banded together with Manchester band Marconi Union to make the most relaxing song to ever exist. Weightless has a continuous rhythm of 60 beats per minute, which theoretically causes your brainwaves and heart rate to synchronise. Sounds a bit like the lift music at a spa to us, but whatever.
4. Beethoven – Fur Elise
Dr Emma Gray (her again) says that the ‘melody and tone range in classical music helped students to study for longer and retain more information’.
5. William Boyce – Symphony No 1 – Allegro
Scientists at Stanford found that the music by the relatively unknown William Boyce reacted to the areas of the brain that are involved with paying attention and making predicitons. Both handy study skills. Plus, it’s a pretty jolly song.
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6. Brian Eno – Music For Airports
Specifically created to chill listeners the hell out, Music For Airports is designed to be looped to instill a sense of calm in tense and anxious situations. Like, for instance, the library, when you’re trying to finish an essay. Cheers Brian.
7. Dolly Parton – 9 To 5
Scientists at Heriot Watt University discovered that finding out the in prediciting what a person’s personality is, all you need to look at is their music taste. The hardworking ones were country fans and er, chart pop fans. We went with country.
8. Royal Blood – Figure It Out
Need some determination? Get heavy. Deninis Y. Hsu at Northwestern found that bass-heavy music can ‘imbue humans with a real sense of power’. Oh wait, we’re going to have to listen to that Royal Blood album again? Gosh darn it.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.