Does listening to pop music make you emotional?

[relm1]

I definitely can get emotional when I hear pop music.  For example, whenever I hear Justin Bieber's "Oh Baby" I am full of rage, anger, disgust, sadness.  Ok jokes aside, I can get very emotional when listening to rock.  There is usually an extra-musical association to the song.  I can't make it through U2's "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" without tearing up the song is so powerful and deeply felt and resonates with me.  The background story is he was kicked out of his house by his drunk, abusive father when he was a kid and they had a strained relationship.  Bono could have continued that line of abuse but decided to leave and never reconnected with his drunk abusive, father.  The song was written and first sung at his father's funeral without the band - just a song where he made peace with his father and wanted him to know, he's the reason Bono became a musician because though they never talked or bonded, his father loved opera and that love of singing and music transcended their strained relationship.  It's a gorgeous and powerful song telling his dead father - I loved you despite your flaws and I thank you for all you did for me...you did the best you could with your circumstances and because of you, you made me who I am today.

[vers la flamme]

As for "emotional sophistication" in "classical" music, I think that it's not the emotions themselves which are more sophisticated than in "pop" music but the means by which they are expressed/suggested.

This is much more to the point. I agree.

I definitely can get emotional when I hear pop music.  For example, whenever I hear Justin Bieber's "Oh Baby" I am full of rage, anger, disgust, sadness.  Ok jokes aside, I can get very emotional when listening to rock.  There is usually an extra-musical association to the song.  I can't make it through U2's "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" without tearing up the song is so powerful and deeply felt and resonates with me.  The background story is he was kicked out of his house by his drunk, abusive father when he was a kid and they had a strained relationship.  Bono could have continued that line of abuse but decided to leave and never reconnected with his drunk abusive, father.  The song was written and first sung at his father's funeral without the band - just a song where he made peace with his father and wanted him to know, he's the reason Bono became a musician because though they never talked or bonded, his father loved opera and that love of singing and music transcended their strained relationship.  It's a gorgeous and powerful song telling his dead father - I loved you despite your flaws and I thank you for all you did for me...you did the best you could with your circumstances and because of you, you made me who I am today.

I don't know that song, but you might be onto something regarding extramusical associations. It could be that when I listen to a lot of these Bob Dylan or My Bloody Valentine songs that make me well up with emotion, or, say, "Tennessee" by Arrested Development, I'm thinking either about moments in my life when these songs were especially resonant with what was going on with me, or otherwise the subject matter of the song in question.

[Mandryka]

The way music effects me strongly emotionally is through the way the words are set. This may be saying more about me than I should, but the piece that effects me most like that is not classical, it is pop, and it is Bob Dylan's Dream. This is obviously saying something about my inability to come to terms with ageing. But that's how it is.

[Florestan]

Talking about extra-musical associations: I love Tino Rossi, Jo Dassin and Charles Aznavour because I first heard their songs in France at a time when I was heavily in love and heavily loved. I love Schubert's D960 sonata because I first heard it at a time when the self-same love relationship began to break apart --- and it was no more in France but in The Netherlands. I love Beethoven's Pathetique sonata because I first heard it during the time of my very first love (I must have been a seventh or eighth grader). And so on, and so forth.

That is why each time I hear the oft pronounced sentence "Let the music speak for itself!" I shrug and pass. There is not one single piece of music I love or like which is not in some way or another related to who I am as a human being, to my whole personal, intellectual and sentimental history. It's not unfrequently that listening to this or that musical work I am spntaneously reminded of this or that poem / novel I've read, this or that painting I've seen, this or that event of my life I've been living through. I've never perceived music as a mere intellectual game with sounds to be enjoyed on its own terms, nor do I have any interest in such music.

[Florestan]

Here is one country/western song that never fails to put tears in my eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx74W76yT2E

I relate to it from my own life experience too --- but I won't disclose how.

[Florestan]

This is my favorite Jo Dassin song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8sGhwop1W8

It narrates with uncanny accuracy the story of my life in France and The Netherlands, 1998 - 2001.

[Florestan]

Here's my favorite Tino Rossi, forever linked in my mind and heart with Naples and the Capri island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vikDOTwx5b8

[Florestan]

Charles Aznavour, equally dear to my heart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OrKMaeQUx0

[amw]

Pop music is a purely intellectual curiosity for me; I've never felt any emotions whatsoever from listening to it, regardless of genre, singer, lyrics, etc.

I think emotional responses to music are learned or imprinted, rather than innate, and one's capacity for an emotional reaction to music depends entirely on what one was exposed to during critical periods in one's development, as well as the purely extramusical and personal associations a particular song might have due to your mind associating it with a particularly memorable event in your life. I'm not sure how early in your life this event has to be, but I'm guessing it's before age 18.

[Florestan]

I think emotional responses to music are learned or imprinted, rather than innate,

The way I see it there's no contradiction between "learned or imprinted" and "innate". One can be "innated" inclined towards "classical" or "pop" music. What is "learned or imprinted" is a particular expression of it.

one's capacity for an emotional reaction to music depends entirely on what one was exposed to during critical periods in one's development, as well as the purely extramusical and personal associations a particular song might have due to your mind associating it with a particularly memorable event in your life. I'm not sure how early in your life this event has to be, but I'm guessing it's before age 18.

With this I agree entirely. In my case, the exposure to particularly memorable events started around 14. My exposure to "classical" music as such predates that by a few years and it was by way of a cleverly engineered medley of "classical" hits which picqued my interest the very first time I heard it and sustained my interest each and every subsequent time I heard it --- so that when my 7th grade music teacher played in the classroom a recording of the Grieg PC, I ejaculated enthusiastically at hearing the very first bars: "Hey, I know that and it's wonderful!", to the astonishment of the said teacher.

[Todd]

One can be "innated" inclined towards "classical" or "pop" music.

Is this a universal truth/fact?

[Florestan]

Is this a universal truth/fact?

Absolutely not. Notice the formulation: "one can be", not "one is". Now that I think of it, maybe I should have said "one might be" --- but then again English is not my mother tongue so some of its subtleties might (or is it can?) escape me. You see, in Romanian there is no a priori distinction between can and may --- it's all context dependent.

[Todd]

Absolutely not. Notice the formulation: "one can be", not "one is". Now that I think of it, maybe I should have said "one might be" --- but then again English is not my mother tongue so some of its subtleties might (or is it can?) escape me. You see, in Romanian there is no a priori distinction between can and may --- it's all context dependent.

The word "may" and the phrase "can be" do not really work with the word "innate". 

Also, "innate" and "learned" have very different definitions. 

[Florestan]

The word "may" and the phrase "can be" do not really work with the word "innate". 

As I said, English is not my mother tongue, so I may/might have confounded "may" with "can" or "might".

Nevertheless, I submit the following propositions to the judgment of native English speakers other than your good self:

One might have an innate penchant for "classical" music.

One can be innatedly inclined to "pop" music.

Please, native English speakers other than Todd, tell me what, if anything, is wrong with the above sentences.

Also, "innate" and "learned" have very different definitions.

Of course they have.

Once again, I ask native English speakers other than Todd: what, if anything, is wrong with the following sentence:

An innate penchant for music might result in love for a learned musical genre.

[Todd]

One might have an innate penchant for "classical" music.

One can be innatedly inclined to "pop" music.

Please, native English speakers other than Todd, tell me what, if anything, is wrong with the above sentences.

First, "innatedly" is not a word.  Second, "innate penchant" is an odd construction.  This marks the first time I have seen it used anywhere by anyone for any reason.  The same applies to your next sentence.  If you are happy with the phrase, go ahead and keep using it.

Ultimately, you are merely rehashing a nature/nurture debate.  You strongly believe that people may be naturally inclined to like or prefer a specific form of music, or multiple forms of music.  To the extent that is true, it would seem most logical that the form or forms of music people might be naturally inclined to like or prefer would manifest themselves around the world, in different cultures, and at different times.  Western classical music most certainly does not fall into that category.

[Florestan]

First, "innatedly" is not a word. 

Granted. It's in the same league as "a more perfect union".

Second, "innate penchant" is an odd construction.  This marks the first time I have seen it used anywhere by anyone for any reason.

Native English speakers other than Todd, please tell me what, if anything, is wrong with the construction "an innate penchant".

You strongly believe that people may be naturally inclined to like or prefer a specific form of music, or multiple forms of music.

Yes, I do --- except that "strongly" is your own term, not mine.

To the extent that is true, it would seem most logical that the form or forms of music people might be naturally inclined to like or prefer would manifest themselves around the world, in different cultures, and at different times.

That is actually most illogical. On the contrary, most people might be naturally inclined to like or prefer the music they hear from their tenderest young age onwards -- provided they have an innate love for music.

Western classical music most certainly does not fall into that category.

Western classical music most certainly does fall into this very category, as witnessed by the fact that the vast majority of Westerners born with an innate love for music prefer either "classical" or "pop" Western music (some of them even to the point of preferring to listen to, and compare, 5,543 recordings of the same music)--- just as the vast majority of Indonesians or Moroccans or Peruvians born with an innate love for music prefer their own music. What is "innate" is the love of music, what is "learned" is a specific way of making music.

Speaking of which, there was a South American native tribe de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme (if you know what I mean) who were so fascinated by Western music that they become celebrated masters in making, and playing, Western instruments and music.

[Todd]

Granted. It's in the same league as "a more perfect union".

Not quite.

That is actually most illogical. On the contrary, most people might be naturally inclined to like or prefer the music they hear from their tenderest young age onwards -- provided they have an innate love for music.

A rather dubious assertion.

Western classical music most certainly does fall into this very category, as witnessed by the fact that the vast majority of Westerners born with an innate love for music prefer either "classical" or "pop" Western music (some of them even to the point of preferring to listen to, and compare, 5,543 recordings of the same music)--- just as the vast majority of Indonesians or Moroccans or Peruvians born with an innate love for music prefer their own music. What is "innate" is the love of music, what is "learned" is a specific way of making music.

And you have empirical evidence for this claim?

[Florestan]

And you have empirical evidence for this claim?

Yes, I have. My right thumb swears by it.

[Todd]

Yes, I have. My right thumb swears by it.

So in terms of being a fact, it is up there with the Taliban defeating the USSR.

[Elgarian Redux]

But ever since getting into classical music, I've noticed that whenever I listen to pop music (or rock, or metal, or hip-hop, or folk, or—good God, especially—country), I become extremely emotional. A wide variety of emotions, too; I guess, whatever the song is going for, sometimes different (ie. sometimes a happy pop song will make me sad, etc.)—but the point is, a lot more emotional than when I'm listening to classical music. It's almost like the writers of 20th and 21st century pop songs are going straight for the gut, making music that is designed to hit hard, to leave an emotional impact on the listener, and that the emotions employed by classical composers are much subtler.

I can remember listening to the Everly Brothers' 'Dream' sometime around 1960 in a fairground, and was so smitten with emotional longing that I could hardly bear it, even though I was only 13 years old. That's the earliest example I remember, and since then I've always valued music for the emotional experience it can provide. Of course the range of emotional states music can evoke is enormous, and impossible to define. I think the kind of emotion induced by classical music may tend to be different. All of my own experiences, however, to a greater or lesser degree, seem to involve a sense of longing. And again, the question of what one is longing for is curiously difficult to pin down.

But I have been in tears or close to it when listening to Elgar's violin concerto, Benny Goodman, Bobby Vee, Mike Oldfield, Handel, the Beatles, Bob Dylan ... and as I'm writing this grotesquely incomplete list, I notice that I don't seem to want to separate the classical from the pop.

The philosopher Suzanne Langer considers works of art (including music) to involve the construction of 'symbols of feeling'. So on Langer's model, the artist creates the piece of music as a symbol which we can contemplate in order to experience something of the feeling involved in its creation. It may or may not be good philosophical thinking, but as a rule of thumb I've found it quite helpful to suppose that I'm sharing something resembling the emotion felt by the artist, when I listen to the music.

Anyway, if that's the case (and I concede it's a big if), I see no reason why pop music shouldn't elicit emotional response in the way any other music can do? Meanwhile, I shall continue to go all gooey when I listen to Bobby Vee, Mike Oldfield, Handel or Elgar, and be grateful for it.