The saving grace of a sad song
What force compels somebody in a particularly melancholy mood to consume music that seems designed to perpetuate it? The answer is far from a simple one.
At first glance, the choice to indulge in a sorrowful song while feeling blue may seem counterproductive. However, scholarly research illuminates a curious and confounding relationship between an individual’s emotional state and the music they choose that, in some cases, suggests the opposite.
Psychologists Jonna Vuoskoski, William Thompson, Doris McIlwain and Tuomas Eerola referred to this contradiction as the “paradox of pleasurable sadness”: the phenomenon of experiencing a significant mood lift after listening to a downcast song.
In support of this concept, a study conducted by researchers Liila Taruffi and Stefan Koelsch revealed that most participants enjoyed sad music more when feeling sad in contrast to when they felt happy.
Despite a bevy of studies conducted on the anomaly of playing a tearful track when it seems unlikely to do any good, research has yet to pin down a singular reason for it.
“Situational factors and listener characteristics might explain a significant portion of the variance in the emotional and aesthetic responses evoked by sad music,” they said.
In other words, opting for a heartrending song in a state of gloom is not a catch-all remedy for the blues. Speaking with Cal Poly students on the matter corroborated this, some expressed alternative preferences to sad music in times of distress.
Computer science sophomore Alex Weller spoke of his reliance on “angry music” when feeling down — especially when productivity is concerned.
“I feel like it’s a better channel for the sadness than just going directly into sadness, because I feel like it’s not a useful emotion for me sometimes,” Weller said. “I’m just thinking in ‘gym terms’ right now because I’m at the gym — if I’m sad I’m not gonna finish the last rep, but if I’m angry, I am.”
Weller’s answer is an exception to Taruffi and Kolesch’s assertion “that people choose to listen to sad music especially when experiencing emotional distress (in most of the cases due to a lost relationship) or when feeling lonely.”
Unlike Weller, biology senior Maria Lopez Neri said a cheerier tune does the trick for her for chasing away the shadows.
“I think when I’m feeling sad, I listen to more upbeat music to bring up my mood,” Neri said. “So I listen more to Spanish versions of music — like the ones that have more rhythm, more childhood songs that I grew up with — and they give me that sort of nostalgia that I’m seeking for in that moment when I’m feeling sad.”
In this regard, many know the “paradox of pleasurable sadness” not by name, but by experience. For some, nostalgia is a bitter-sweet and occasionally problematic cure for sadness. In Neri’s case, however, the cure doesn’t come with the adverse side effects.
“It’s like a temporary placeholder, you know? It’s just for that small moment then and there, but it does make me feel better afterward,” Neri said. “It doesn’t make me overthink as much, or about what I’m going through that’s making me feel the way I’m feeling. It kind of calms myself down a little bit.”
The predictable approach of using lighthearted tunes to dispel sadness is far from the reality for everybody. Just as people cope with hardship in many unique ways, it naturally follows that their music taste would reflect that.
