Do you ever get the music 'chills'?
Are you moved by music? Do you get the ‘music chills’? It’s when activity deep inside the brain, the nucleus accumbens to be precise, simply increases. Not everyone gets it, which is most unfortunate.
Researchers refer to it as a ‘reward structure’. “It responds to all sorts of biological rewards like food, or sex or drugs,” one boffin told The Guardian a few years ago. “And the chemical that’s released during musical chills, dopamine, is one that is also acted on by things like cocaine or amphetamine or other intensely pleasurable experiences.”
One study showed that nearly 50% of non-musicians had never experienced them.
Another study, this time in Japan, surveyed how over 150 participants reacted to music, and how often they experienced ‘goose bumps, shivers, crying or a lump in their throat.’ The study results showed that tunes that saw tears left participants in a state of pleasure and feeling calmer.
Further, Peter Gabriel calls music “an emotional toolbox” - essentially that it can take us back to periods of our lives, one we can turn to at various moments and “locate songs to recover, guide and sublimate our feelings.”
This summer’s Olympics always heralds a release of the good stuff: serotonin, dopamine and endorphins. Notably with the closing credits to the BBC’s final montage of the Games. After two weeks of little sleep and surveying golden, emotional moments working at the Games, tears usually flow.
Which led me to think, what are the tunes which give me the ‘chills’.
Here's a Top 10 from, as Gabriel says, periods of my life, some 30 years ago, a few from the last two years.
What’s playing and why:
Heartbreaker - Crazy P
Danielle Moore was the lead singer of this still excellent dance act. She died, aged 52, in late August in "sudden and tragic circumstances". Heartbreaker.
Seasons - Future Islands
It’s 10 years since the four-piece, led by their unique frontman, came on Letterman and went viral mad. Can't think of a better performance. They had toured incessantly prior to this breakthrough and it led to a stratospheric rise. Perseverance.
What’s upcoming
Volume - Caribou
Caribou will release their next album in early October. A master of his craft. You will recognise where the inspirations come from on the title track. Here’s a playlist of their best work. Standout track: Ravi
What’s just out
Jamie XX - In Waves
‘Blissful bangers for 3am on big speakers’ said one review. One third of art-pop auteurs The xx, he likes to go unnoticed. This just thrusts him further into it. Spotify album.
Father John Misty - Screamland
A fantastic, poppy new single. Touring early 2025.
Timeless classic
Petals in Sound - Lush
Liverpudlian dance producer unleashed this in 2023. Play it anytime of the year.
What else you may have missed
Rob Delaney chose The The for one of his Desert Island Discs recently, in an emotional listen.