Never understood the appeal of Radiohead, Joy Division or the Smiths? New research suggests it's because for some, sad music can literally hurt.
Researchers in the UK and Finland have looked into why some people love melancholic sounds, and others don't.
"There seem to be two types of enjoyable experiences evoked by sad music listening," says study co-author Dr Henna-Riikka Peltola from the University of Jyväskylä.
The first is that quite often, sad music just sounds good.
"Aesthetic qualities were very much involved in the experienced pleasure," she says.
"Alternatively, sad music is also associated with a set of emotions that give comfort to the listener, and where memories and associations play a strong part of making the experience pleasant. These experiences were often mentioned to confer relief and companionship in difficult situations of life."
Unsurprisingly then the study, which looked at the music tastes for more than 2400 people, found older people are more likely to enjoy sad music than the young.
"However, a large number of people also associated sad music with painful experiences," she explains.
"Such intense experiences seemed to be mentally and even physically straining, and thus far from pleasurable."
Young people and women were more likely to react negatively to sad music, while people with musical training had their emotions amplified, whether they enjoyed it or not.
"The results help us to pinpoint the ways people regulate their mood with the help of music, as well as how music rehabilitation and music therapy might tap into these processes of comfort, relief, and enjoyment," says lead researcher Prof Tuomas Eerola of Durham University.
"The findings also have implications for understanding the paradoxical nature of enjoyment of negative emotions within the arts and fiction."
In other words, it gives us some insight into understanding why we like sad movies like Titanic and tragic novels.
Newshub.
