People Don’t Want to Hear Metal in Doctor Waiting Rooms

Sitting in waiting rooms can be excruciating, especially at the doctor’s office. A new study by Tebra shows that people really don’t want to hear metal music while they’re sitting the waiting room, and which song is played in doctor offices the most.

Tebra asked 1,002 Americans about their health habits and taste in music to gather the findings. Participants were able to pick up to three genres they like, and the majority of them claimed to be rock fans (58 percent). Half of the respondents also dubbed themselves as pop fans.

Less than 25 percent of them said they were fans of hip-hop and rap, R&B, country, classical, electronic, indie and jazz, with only 15 percent of individuals saying they were fans with metal, so it’s easy to see why many of them don’t want to hear heavy music at the doctor’s office.

They also gathered data on the music by going through Spotify playlists that were related to certain search terms, such as doctor’s office, dentist’s office and waiting rooms.

While 15 percent of the surveyed group like metal, according to the findings, 31 percent of the group said it’s the genre they’d least want to hear while sitting in a waiting room at a doctor’s office. Hip-hop and rap, gospel, country, punk, Bollywood, classical, Latin/Reggaeton, electronic and k-pop also made the list for least desirable genres to hear in waiting rooms, but they all ranked above metal, in that particular order.

So you probably won’t hear Pantera the next time you’re waiting for a check-up, but there’s a high chance you will hear Journey. Another one of Tebra’s findings notes that Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” is the most-played song in doctor offices. “Africa” by Toto, “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin'” were among the other top played tracks.

READ MORE: Psychologist Says Listening to Heavy Metal Lessens Stress, Promotes Thinking

One more thing we’d like to point out from this study is that metal fans ranked among the least healthy of the fans of all the other genres, and they reported rarely going to the doctor the most out of any other genre. Country fans are apparently the healthiest, as per the report, so you may want to think about going and getting your yearly physical if it’s something you tend to skip out on.

See all of the graphs below for a more detailed look, and read the full study here.