Average-Looking Women Still Able to Carry a Tune, Study Finds

Spokespersons for a panel of prominent scientific bodies, including the Carnegie Institution for Science, the American Society for Cell Biology; the International Congress of Human Genetics; and NASA, announced Tuesday that the ability to sing a song on-key is not necessarily limited to beautiful women who are in their late-teens and early twenties. 

The results of the groundbreaking study, to be published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, follow decades of painstaking research by some of the most revered scientific minds in the world - and has already begun to roil music industry executives, pop music icons, and members of the national media. 

Infinity Management International, a premier Hollywood talent agency, which represents pop music giants Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Nelly Furtado, and Avril Lavigne, released a terse statement to the media late-Tuesday, through spokesperson Sam Anders. Said Anders, "Just...um...be careful what you wish for."

Dr. Branson Forster, a professor of genetics at Cornell University, as well as a lead researcher in the painstaking 28-year study said, "When we were collecting some of our preliminary data, back in the early 80's, we knew then and there just how controversial our findings would be perceived, how damning the data would be to the music industry as a whole and, most significantly, how damaging it would be to our nation's long-held conviction that the only possible way a sane person can sit through a song like "Fergalicious" would be if the singer were A. smoking hot, B. just a little bit trashy (though not Van Nuys-smack-whore-blow-job-behind-a-Koo Koo Roo-Dumpster-for-a-pack-of-Winstons trashy), or C. barely legal, but perhaps not even that old. "

One of the studies' major experiments, conducted by Dr. Sundeep Singh, Department Chair of Cell Biology at UC-Berkley, involved a complete genome mapping of maligned pop singer Brittany Spears, to ascertain whether or not she does, in fact, possesses the VL-466 gene pair, otherwise known among biologists as the "talent gene." In the past, VL-466 has been isolated and extracted from the DNA of such notable visionaries as Albert Einstein, Imannuel Kant, Jesus Christ, and David Hasselhoff.

Said a clearly befuddled Singh, during the latter stages of the two-year Spears experiment in June of 2007, "Although we've been testing Ms. Spears for the VL-466 for some time now, I think at this point it's pretty safe to say that she must be an extremely hard worker. Or off-the-charts smoking hot. Either one." 

After months of additional research, Singh found that Spears' closest genomic match is currently possessed by Verona Jones, a 52-year-old, thrice divorced pole dance instructor and part-time lab subject from Stockton, California. 

Said Ms. Jones, when reached via dial-up Internet for comment, "Shit, that trampy-ass cow wishes she could shake it like me. People think I can dance now? They shouda' seen me work this trunk four-hundred pounds ago, before I had to have my lap band removed and had to drive to get from the cereal aisle to the chips aisle."

During the study, Singh concurrently ordered the genomic mapping of 49-year-old aspiring vocalist Janet Vuckovich. According to Singh, Vuckovich's mapping yielded conclusive results that the mother of five with chronic halitosis, an iron lung, turrets syndrome, festering boils, a unibrow, and a severe drooling problem "possesses extraordinary - even other-worldly - talent." 

"Just for fun," added Singh wistfully, "I had Janet sing Streisand's 'People. And let's just say that beyond all the oozing and drooling - as well as the gut-wrenchingly nauseating stench - lies the voice of an angel." 

Another key component of the study, spearheaded by a team of aerospace engineers at NASA, found that unattractive women do in fact have the physical capacity to generate both pouty facial expressions and piercingly cloying vibrato, hallmarks of attractive pop singers such as Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera.  

Said Jonathan Olsen, chief coordinator of Aerodynamics of Space Transportation Systems at NASA, "Over an eight week trial, each day we'd choose two trained female vocalists and secure them at the end of a turbine wind tunnel for eighteen consecutive hours. Basically, one of the singers would be unfathomably hot while the other would most likely have warts or an extra shrunken limb - or perhaps be riddled with festering scabs. They were then asked to sing Rihanna's "Don't Stop The Music" while being subjected to winds upwards of two hundred miles an hour."

After months of grueling tests, Olsen and his team of researchers found that, though many of the their subjects expired during testing, of the survivors, the unattractive vocalists faired as good or better than the attractive ones.

Olsen asserts that the overall findings of the study "could lead to a greater understanding of the ways in which individuals create music and could open the door to great talents that have been pushed to the periphery of the music industry for so long."

But Warner Brothers Music Executive Philip Reese was less sanguine in his assessment of the study. "Even if some of this stuff were true - which I sincerely doubt - let me once again remind everyone that we're talking about the possibility of a music industry that is completely devoid of 18-year-old gyrating flesh. So people, ask yourselves: Is that a world in which you really want to raise your kids? 

Comments

[Katie]

My mother would be happy to know that Jesus Christ is in the same catergory as David Hasselhoff. And maybe the unattractive vocalists did better because their size allowed them to stand their ground? Their next test should be singing and dancing at the same time. Which would knock several well-known lip synchers out of the running...SNL fiasco anyone?