Abstract
This article discusses the role of emotion in popular music from a psychological perspective. An online study was conducted in which 100 young adults made emotion ratings of loved and hated pieces of music. While the literature presents us with some ambiguous views about the function and value of emotion in popular music, the results of the study suggest that for listeners, emotion in popular music is as important as that reported in other musical forms, such as high-art (classical) music, where emotion is considered by many scholars to be more unambiguously important. However, overall popular music was reported to both express and evoke lower passive emotion ratings than high-art music. A corollary of the study is that popular music could be defined by frequency of reported enjoyment of spontaneously selected pieces. As a result Chopin becomes a popular music composer to the same extent that Lady Gaga is a popular performer. The results of the study are interpreted from a psychological perspective, calling upon mere exposure theory to explain how music becomes popular from a listener’s cognitive perspective, and dissociation theory, to explain why negative emotion in popular music can be enjoyed.
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