Canadian pomp rock tops Reg music poll

By Lester Haines
Friday, 30 July, 2004
http://www.theregister.co.uk/

Poll result Well, the results of our Mother of all Music Polls are in, and they make sobering reading indeed. More than 7,000 of you voted and we can now confirm beyond any doubt that - despite previous reports to the contrary - developers do not play air guitar to Megadeth. No, it's much, much worse than that.

The shocking truth is that the whole of the IT world is apparently obsessed with unpleasant Canadian pomp rock in the shape of Rush. In fact, the only profession which did not vote this their number one choice of easy listening were the Strategy Boutiques (Ad Sales/Marketing/PR), who have evidently decided to eschew whalesong to rock on to honourary unpleasant Canadian pomp rockers Heart.

There are three possible explanations for this:
1) That the world of IT is awash with Rush aficionados.
2) That the vote is simply a "dirty protest" against the omission of certain genres and artists - the online equivalent of fouling oneself and spreading the results around the walls.
3) That participants did not understand that only one vote was allowed overall - not one vote in each category, thereby swinging the tally in favour of unpleasant Candian pomp rock.
Whatever the truth, all three options are equally unpalatable. Furthermore, we discern few patterns emerging from the poll, apart from the fact that academics are the only people to have even the slightest interest in classical music and hardware engineers will occasionally get their rocks off to Queen. Draw what conclusions you will from that chilling prospect.
Before announcing the full results we would, however, like to give a heads-up to CIO/IT directors who do not - as previously claimed - enjoy fine wines to the sound of Mozart, but rather formulate their IT strategies to a backdrop of Slayer and the Dead Kennedys. And Rush, obviously.

Here, then, are the top 30 artists as voted for by you, our beloved readers:

Rush - 737
Metallica - 422
Radiohead - 281
Heart - 276
Iron Maiden - 274
Red Hot Chili Peppers - 238
Pink Floyd - 230
Led Zeppelin - 202
Megadeth - 191
Nirvana - 188
Slayer - 165
Queen - 138
Portishead - 129
Smashing Pumpkins - 125
Kraftwerk - 125
Pixies - 116
AC/DC - 115
U2 - 108
Black Sabbath - 99
Coldplay - 87
Guns N' Roses - 84 v R.E.M - 75
Bach - 69
Beastie Boys - 65
Dead Kennedys - 65
Jimi Hendrix - 62
Motorhead - 60
The Beatles - 60
Joy Division - 57
The Smiths - 57

And you may now peruse the top five artists by profession. Read it and weep:

***Software developer
Rush
Metallica
Radiohead
Iron Maiden
Red Hot Chili Peppers

***Webmaster
Rush
Heart
Nirvana
Radiohead
Metallica

***Security
Rush
Metallica
Iron Maiden
Radiohead
Pink Floyd

***Telecoms jockey
Rush
Metallica
Heart
U2
Radiohead

***Reseller/distie/channel-type
Rush
Pink Floyd
Led Zeppelin
Kraftwerk
Slayer

***Training
Rush
Metallica
AC/DC
Nirvana
Kraftwerk

***Student
Rush
Iron Maiden
Metallica
Radiohead
Red Hot Chili Peppers

***Sales Rush
Heart
Metallica
Led Zeppelin
Nirvana

***Project manager
Rush
Metallica
Radiohead
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Queen

***Strategy Boutique (Ad Sales/Marketing/PR)
Heart
Rush
U2
R.E.M
Bach

***Database administrator
Rush
Heart
Pink Floyd
Metallica
Red Hot Chili Peppers

***Hardware engineer
Rush
Metallica
Heart
AC/DC
Queen

***Callcentre thingummybob
Rush
Metallica
Iron Maiden
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Slayer

***Academic
Rush
Radiohead
Pixies
Bach
Pink Floyd

***Engineer
Rush
Metallica
Heart
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Pink Floyd

***Network manager
Rush
Metallica
Portishead
Nirvana
Iron Maiden

***IT manager
Rush
Radiohead
Heart
red Hot Chili Peppers
Pink Floyd

***Sysadmin
Rush
Metallica
Iron Maiden
Pink Floyd
Megadeth

***IT hack
Rush
Heart
Megadeth
Pink Floyd
Metallica

***CIO/IT director
Rush
Pink Floyd
Heart
Slayer
Dead Kennedys