10 Facts You Didn't Know About Music

August 16, 2014 12:01 AM EDT

Music Facts You Didn’t Know:

Background music does not improve your ability to concentrate but will help you when you’re at the gym. It can affect how you work. A littlebackground noise makes you more creative, a lot hurts creativity.

One of the most interesting music facts in that your favorite song is probably your favorite because you associate it with an emotional event in your life. Both social influences and quality affect which songs you like. You don’t like the original version of a song because it’s better, you like it because it’s the one you heard first. Whether a musician makes eye contactduring a concert and what they wear affects whether you like their music.

When times are tough people prefer music that’s more meaningful. Music can predict the stock market. Popular music has been getting more narcissistic for a while now. All the best songs are about sex anyway.

Do you feel these music facts are increasing your intelligence? Well, there’s a lot of evidence that playing music can make you smarter. Listening to classical music might increase that IQ as well. (And smarter people like classical music.) Music can literally affect the way you see the world and lyrics can influence your behavior. Liberals own a wider variety of musicthan conservatives.

Music facts related to money: Bar owners get you to drink more by turning the music up. Love songs and romantic music make you spend more in flower shops. Classical, jazz and popular music make you spend more in restaurants.

Rockstars do really live fast and die young. It can cost upwards of a million dollars to make a hit song. Music piracy helps big bands and hurts little bands. “Overall, the Beatles’ lyrics became darker, more psychologically distant, and less immediate over time.”

The music you like does say a lot about your personality because different personality types are drawn to different music.Your personality also affectshow you use music. You get some of your musical taste from your parents. The music you’ll like when you’re old is probably what you were exposed to between ages 16 and 21. You can tell how conscientiousness and agreeable a man is by watching him dance — and if he keeps dancing he’ll get more creative.

Country music can make you want to kill yourself but rock music won’t. Classical is the most relaxing. People who like heavy metal don’t have issues. Jazz musicians actually “turn off” part of their brain to be more creative. Romantic music does help men pickup women. Music canpersuade you to do unethical things. Good music can increase pain tolerance and reduce anxiety. Melodies are more responsible for how music makes us feel than lyrics.

Music facts about music junkies: People who really like music are more likely to get songs stuck in their head and the best way to deal with an “earworm” is to just accept it. People who are very open to new experience are more likely to get the chills from good music. Yes, you can be addicted to music but Robert Palmer will be disappointed to find out you probably aren’t “Addicted to Love.”

And of all the fun music facts I’ve presented here, this is my favorite: “An Italian singer wrote this song with gibberish to sound like English. If you’ve ever wondered what other people think Americans sound like, this is it.”

This piece originally appeared on Barking Up the Wrong Tree.

Join over 90,000 readers and get a free weekly update via email here.

10 Facts You Didn’t Know About Music

More Must-Reads from TIME