Our favourite sad songs seem to become less enjoyable when we try to take the emotion out of them
By Christa Lesté-Lasserre
10 April 2024
Why we enjoy songs that make us feel sad is unclear
Klaus Vedfelt
We can love a song despite it making us feel sad — and scientists don’t agree on why.
Researchers have previously found that sad music might cause us to feel moved in an emotionally positive way, perhaps through experiencing empathy or appreciating the artistry of the piece. Now, a study has found we might simply find pleasure in feeling the sadness such music evokes.
“I guess part of being human is that we just can’t cope with the idea that there’s something strangely pleasurable about negative emotion,” says Emery Schubert at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “But what about people who actually just say: ‘Well, the reason I really love this piece of music is because it makes me sad’? Who’s to say that they’re wrong?”
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Electronic music appears to alter our state of consciousness
Schubert asked 50 people – mostly undergraduate music students – to think about a piece of music they love but consider sad, which included compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven and Taylor Swift. They then answered an online questionnaire about the emotions they felt while listening to that piece.
Next, participants were asked to try to imagine that the sadness in their selected piece of music could somehow be removed. Overall, the participants said this made them appreciate it less, with 82 per cent reporting that the sadness added to their enjoyment.