Changes the way we think

What music by Scooter & Co. does to the brain

When Scooter frontman H.P. Baxxter bellows lines like "How much is the fish" into the microphone to the sound of powerful bass and sweet synthesizers, his music does something to the brains of the listeners. Spanish researchers are investigating what.

(Bild: Andreas Graf)

"Hyper Hyper" escalation today at the Wiener Stadthalle! Techno, trance and the countless other varieties of electronic music divide opinion: for some, they are simply "pumping" noise, sounds from the computer, such as those arranged by the German cult group Scooter into lyrically often very creative numbers, for others they are a mental wellness and relaxation program. Scientists have measured exactly what processes electronic sounds trigger in our gray cells.

Anyone who puts on a Scooter classic, be it the evergreen "How much is the Fish", the techno anthem "Nessaja" or the "Logical Song", exposes their brain to comparatively high beat rates - beats per minute. Around 140 beats per minute (bpm) is the usual beat for many of the German cult techno artists' songs, which means that more than two beats per second penetrate the listener's brain in the form of low-frequency sound waves through the eardrum.