What effect does Bruce's music allegedly have on white people?

Today in the department of WTF, we have this: A new study from researchers at the University of Minnesota claims that listening to even just a few minutes of rock music like Bruce Springsteen or the White Stripes causes white people to favor their own race to the detriment of others.

Meanwhile, listening to Top 40 pop caused white subjects to treat all races equally, the study found.

Researchers created a test in which white students were asked to allocate money between different student groups. Before the allocation, the test subjects were isolated in a room with different kinds of music playing. After about seven minutes of quiet listening -- which the students thought was not part of the experiment -- they were asked how to divide tuition money between four student groups: the Centres of African American Studies, Rural and Agricultural Studies, Arab American Studies, and Latino American Studies.

Listening to pop music like Akon and Fergie caused the white test subjects to divide the money about equally, with one-quarter going to each group. But listening to rock like the White Stripes led to the students giving the white ethnic group 35 percent of the funds, and dividing the rest equally among the other groups, researchers said.

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James Quine

Dan Auerbach, rockstar.

Earlier this week, in an interview with radio station WGRD of Grand Rapids, Mich., Black Keys frontman and blooze-rawk genius Dan Auerbach offered a strong response to critics and fans who think rock 'n' roll is dead:

I think that it's so lame of an argument, it seems so stupid. It's like the press needs something to talk about. Being 16 years old and getting an electric guitar is never going to get old. There's always going to be kids making music. There's always going to be kids in bands...

Everything is cyclical. It'll come back around and be popular. The Foo Fighters are like the biggest band in the world. They play stadiums. How is rock dead?"

Sorry Dan, but you're missing the point here. The question is not whether rock 'n' roll will follow the dinosaurs and the dodo and disappear completely from the Earth. Anyone who means "total extinction" when they argue that rock 'n' roll is dead or dying clearly isn't thinking well.

What people talk about when they talk about rock's decline isn't a disappearance, it's a lack of vitality. There will be rock bands for another 50 years, maybe much longer. But will they contribute anything new to the musical or cultural landscape? Will they be a fount from which interesting ideas and attitudes spring? Will they be seen as a revolutionary force or a reactionary one?

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"That guy in the sweater said what?"

​Sunday ad-circular vest model Rick Santorum is going around the country arguing that pretty much every new feature that America has developed since 1950 is in fact a bug that Quality Assurance should have stomped out. This weekend, though, he reached back even further in time to find better days: Instead of just taking on newfangled ideas like contraception, pre-natal testing, and whether or not black  "blah" people are any good at anything, Sanotrum is contesting the very idea of going to school:More >>

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Earlier this week, we heard a song that stopped us dead in our tracks and made our jaws drop a little bit. Not because it's particularly awesome (musically-speaking, it kind of just sounds like a lady version of "The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars), and not because it's saying something we haven't heard before. No, Elle Varner's "So Fly" single made us listen precisely because it says so much that we are sick of hearing. More >>

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Dear Karl,

We know you live in a world where protruding bones, malnourishment, and constant critical analysis of the female form is perfectly normal, but we don't like it very much when you step into our world (the non-fashion one, where ladies are allowed to eat more than 500 calories worth of food a day if they want to), and force your limited view of womanhood on everyone.

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Yesterday, we found out from a British music news website that, like Santa Claus, Barack Obama keeps a "Nice" list -- or rather a list of people he wants to have supporting him in his re-election campaign. We've seen the list, and alongside all of the alphabetized politicians, business and sports people, and actors, there is a frankly startling array of musicians, including -- yes -- Arcade Fire, The Roots, and -- we could barely believe our eyes -- Vampire bloody Weekend.

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