It’s always nice when researchers employing a loosely scientific method produce results you were more or less expecting. Folks at the University of Portsmouth have determined that loud music makes people want to drink alcohol in greater quantities and at a much faster rate because the music makes it taste sweeter. Science!

The study was conducted by psychologist, Dr. Lorenzo Stafford, who had 80 regular drinkers between the ages of 18 and 28 rate a range of drinks on levels of bitterness and sweetness while while Stafford played a variety of audio distractions in the background, ranging from total silence to “loud club-type music playing at the same time as reading a news report.”

Stafford found that participants who were listening to loud music (as opposed to the weird electro-news report mashups) were liable to report that their drinks tasted much sweeter, and drank far more of the booze at hand. Stafford also found that alcohol made “loud club-type music” far more tolerable, generating a feedback loop where loud music makes you want to drink, and drinking makes you okay with loud music, which explains why whatever music you don’t like exists.

Anyway! Next time you’re given the stink-eye for drinking too much or too fast, lurch over and explain why it’s the music’s fault, and that there’s a scientific paper somewhere the proves it. That’ll probably smooth things over.

[Source: PA]