Music

New Study: Rats on Cocaine Love Jazz. Wait–What?

Every once in a while, we hear about strange research endeavours that, on the surface at least, don’t seem to make a lot of sense.  I’m sure the lab-coated boffins behind this study had their reasons for jacking up their rats on gak and exposing them to repeated listenings of Kind of Blue.  It’s just that I’m apparently too dumb to understand.

From the NY Daily News:

Taxpayers may feel kind of blue when they discover their dollars went to fund a study to determine rats like to bop to the music of Miles Davis while hopped up on cocaine.

The study, which was performed at Albany Medical College, drew jeers from the animal rights group In Defense of Animals and landed it on its top ten list of Real Ridiculous Research.

The research found that sober rats don’t really like music that much. After the silence, the rats liked Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” more than Miles Davis’s iconic jazz tune “Four.” 

But when the rats were given doses of cocaine, their tasted shifted and they gravitated toward the jazz.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 37979 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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