Pleasure in Pain: The Enjoyment of Sad Music
When I want to feel energized before a long night of studying, I usually put on some of my favorite upbeat pop songs. When I’m feeling particularly stressed and want to feel at ease, I usually listen to some calmer piano music. Sometimes, however, I find myself actively seeking out songs to listen to that might be considered sad. In fact, most of my top played songs on Spotify could probably be considered “sad” in some way. One of my favorite songs of 2021 was No Hard Feelings by Wolf Alice, a somber ballad about trying to move on from heartbreak and loss. I don’t consider myself a particularly sad person, so why do I find this music so appealing?
People may listen to sad music for a variety of reasons. For example, it can be cathartic to indulge in music that conveys sad ideas or evokes melancholic feelings. However, sadness is generally viewed as an emotion that can be unpleasant in other contexts, as with grieving a loss. This conflict has become known as the “paradox of tragedy”: while sadness is an emotion people typically strive to avoid or reduce, engaging with sad media can result in pleasurable experiences. So, why is engaging with sad music enjoyable for some people? Is it just purely masochism? Not necessarily.
A recent study examined the feelings that mediate the enjoyment one experiences in response to music they perceive to be sad. Participants were first asked to listen to a given passage of music: either an orchestral piece (Oblivion by Aster Piazzola), a gothic piece (Darkness by Lacrimosa), industrial rock (Something I Can Never Have by Nine Inch Nails), a film soundtrack (Discovery of the Camp by Michael Kamen), and a piano ballad (Together We Will Live Forever by Clint Mansell). The purpose of using such a wide variety of songs was to accurately sample a wide range of expressions of sadness through music. Participants were then asked to rate each song on their emotional response to the song, their level of familiarity with each song, and their liking of each song. Through self-report surveys, it was found that most of the music was relatively unfamiliar to the participants, meaning that their liking of the music was not likely to be swayed by how well they know the songs. Additionally, when people rated the music excerpts as sad, their liking of the music was almost entirely mediated by feeling “moved” by the song. Scores of perceived beauty of the music were tested for their effect on liking of the music, however the mediation effect of beauty on liking was not significant. The takeaway from this study was that for some people, some sad music can provide a profound emotional experience. It may not be that people simply enjoy feeling sad, but rather the enjoyment comes from having been provoked to a state of strong emotion.
It has been proposed that certain personality traits may play a role in how people engage with music of a particular emotional quality. One recent study sought to understand if an individual’s capacity for empathy had an impact on this. Participants were first scored for their levels of trait empathy on a self-report index, which is refers to one’s capability of empathy as an unchanging aspect of their personality. The hypothesis was that, for those who scored highly on the IRI, there would be greater levels of centrality in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, medial orbitofrontal cortex, and connectivity with the visual cortex while listening to sad music. The reasoning behind this conjecture was that those high in empathy should be more responsive to sad music, and therefore the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which are involved in compassion and inferring mental states respectively, should be activate; additionally, it was hypothesized that the visual cortex should be active because of the common tendency for individuals to imagine scenarios while listening to emotionally strong music.
Through fMRI, participant brain activity was studied while listening to both happy and sad excerpts from soundtracks. The results of the study basically supported the hypotheses; the mOFC and dmPFC were both found to be active during excerpts of sad music in those with high trait empathy, both of which are involved in inferring the mental states of others. Taruffi argued that the reasoning for this is that fantasizing is a large factor in the enjoyment people receive when listening to more emotionally somber music. This is also why the visual cortex seems to be active during these moments, as mental imaging is involved in these evocative emotional experiences people may have while listening to music. The brain’s response to sad music is therefore different from its response to happy music. In people with higher trait empathy, the response to sad music seems to resemble one of compassion, as individuals presumably envision scenarios or memories while listening to a given piece of music.
This paradox of finding pleasure in sad music isn’t simply a self-destructive habit people have to dampen their mood. Music can universally provide a novel emotional experience in a way that other forms of art do not. When I listen to No Hard Feelings, I find myself getting carried away by the feelings poured out in the song, listening in as the singer tells her story of heartache. Emotionally charged music can be powerful and evocative, which is why many find themselves so drawn to it. You may not like listening to sad music all the time, but occasionally, it may actually be enjoyable to indulge in some sadness.
References
Flagan, T. and Beer, J.S. (2013). Three ways in which midline regions contribute to self-evaluation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 02. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00450
L. Xu, Y. Zheng, D. Xu and L. Xu. (2021). Predicting the Preference for Sad Music: The Role of Gender, Personality, and Audio Features. IEEE Access, vol. 9, pp. 92952–92963, 2021, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3090940.
Taruffi, L., Skouras, S., Pehrs, C., & Koelsch, S. (2021). Trait empathy shapes neural responses toward sad music. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 21(1), 231–241. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00861-x
Vuoskoski, J. K., & Eerola, T. (2017). The pleasure evoked by sad music is mediated by feelings of being moved. Frontiers in Psychology, 8.
