This is an interesting topic to me. I for sure get actual goosebumps from moments in my favorite songs.
But come on man... this source is absolute garbage. It's not really a readable article. Just a few sentences thrown together, in a very click-baity looking website.
> Plus these sensations can also be associated with memories linked to a certain song, which cannot be controlled in a laboratory setting.
First band I thought about after reading this sentence is Boards of Canada. In an article published last year [1] they explain how music by the group is able to inject memories of childhood and foresee the notion of the lost future.
I personally get goosebumps in almost every song by this band.
it took me a long time to get into BoC but the strange thing is that I never get sick of them. there are very few bands that do that. (Mogwai does that too or within the hibhop genre that would be The Roots, or Mos Def).
It seems that the quicker I like a band/song the quicker I also get sick of it. And music that I have to get used to with passive listening - e.g. have them playing in the background but not when running or driving then the longer I like them. Some artists and albums have literally stayed with me for decades. (e.g. The Roots Illadelphia Halflife or Things Fall Apart acompanied me when my kids were born, when I got my dog, when my dog died, when I got married, when my kids left for university, ...). Not every band is around that long or is able to adapt its music style to remain relevant (for my taste) ...
I remember the times when I went to buy music at record stores and there was no way of just purchasing the top 3 tracks from an album and skip the rest. You either bought the whole album or you got a single but there was nothing in between. Having shelled out the money I then wanted to make an effort to also give those songs "a chance" that didn't immediately stick. And it was always those more complex tunes that I ended up liking the most ...
Radiohead's discography has been this for me with almost every album. The most jarring changes were between The Bends, OK Computer, and Kid A: each time I hated their 'new sound' at first and then eventually they became one of those albums that I just default to when I can't decide what else I might want to listen to.
The closest analogue in movies, I suppose, are the Coen Brothers. I wish there was a word for the feeling of listening to/watching/reading something, disliking it, but knowing that you'll probably end up loving it.
huge radiohead fan here. I also think they have undergone a massive transformation in style. as a fan it's challenging, but rewarding to follow them. As you described your struggle with their constant changing I'm currently struggling with their latest album. I'll probably end up listening to it every day in a year or 2. It kind of "grows on you", doesn't it? Like a pair of shoes that don't fit yet and after a time they are your favorite pair.
I saw them in Sweden a few years back right at their reunion, but while I still listen to a lot of shoegaze I think I might prefer Neil Halsteads solo stuff more, and the old Mojave 3 stuff, even if the genres are very different. Either way it's apparent he can make great music.
Even though I'm a grumpy 30 something, I do appreciate the last decade's revival of shoegaze. There's a lot of great new stuff. Everything from the more popular DIIV, Wild Nothing, Beach House, Beach Fossils (theme?) to more obscure stuff like LAUNDER, Scuba Dvala, Ringo Deathstarr, Blouse, Lowtide, JAWS, the Bilinda Butchers (a bit on the nose), etc.
Thank you for this. Listening now. Really good stuff. This is the kind of electronic music that is right up my alley. Straddles the line between ambient and lyrical, abstract and structured. Seems like it would also be really great to use as work music, especially for coding.
The overall feeling is often called "frisson", and some people describe it as the feeling when you're on a swingset and it hits its peak and starts to come back down. I get literal goosebumps from some music, and some movies too, but that's probably just triggered by the soundtrack. Blade Runner 2049 and Annihilation always do it even though I've seen them almost a dozen times each.
For me it's the Charge of the Rohirrim at the battle of the Pelennor fields when Theoden makes his speech to his riders:
"Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
spear shall be shaken, shield shall be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now, ride! Ride for ruin and the world's ending!
Death! Death! Death!
Forth Eorlingas!"
The sound of The Shimmer from the trailer and in the movie (See here https://youtu.be/89OP78l9oF0?t=54) makes my skin shiver every time I hear it. Also I loved Annihilation both in book and movie form. Have you seen its spiritual predecessor, Roadside Picnic?
Of a sample of 20 people, 10 participants self-reported experiencing goosebumps when listening to music, 10 didn't; the DTI brain machine finds they have different connectivity between certain regions of the brain.
Who gets to be _the special_ out of two sets with an equal number of members? :)
I suspect the sample was chosen to get two equal sets, as for an experiment like this you want to maximise the data from the two groups, as you are not trying to measure the incidence of the effect but rather the differences from the effect.
I was already coming here to comment (even before you said this) on how this seems to rhyme with picturing something in your mind's eye, which I always grokked as being figurative speech.
I realized through my relationship with my partner and later a coworker that some people picture things with extraordinary acuity (so much so that I can trigger revolt or disgust by just describing something), but I thought they were the special ones. It wasn't until I read about Derek Parfit having aphantasia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia) that I realized I was sitting somewhere out in the long tail of human experience.
There are two axes here! Phantasia does not imply involuntary imagining! I don't imagine/picture involuntarily, and for many many years I didn't understand that most people do involuntarily imagine what they hear. Forbidden-while-eating topics are no longer a mystery to me.
My own mental model (sigh...) is that these are all roughly related to (if not literal types of) the crossover/cross-polination (sigh...) that manifests in synesthesia.
I think synesthesia is definitionally involuntary, but your statement did make me go search "voluntary synesthesia", though I'm not done reading results yet.
I would guess it's a lot harder to identify people who can electively conjure anything akin to what synesthetes experience. It probably feels less distressing or noteworthy, happens less often, and would be a lot harder to study...
While I have the conscious ability to create both images and entire 3d animated systems in my head, it also comes with my subconscious flashing images at me, from animal forms through to mandalas (sometimes combined with buzzing noises), having extremely intrusive visual memories that can be triggered unexpectedly off a host of random things, and experiencing fireworks whenever I have a migraine. I think I might be sitting in a tail somewhere too. Hi, how's your tail doing? This one is very brightly coloured but tends to move around a lot.
This is similar to a conversation I had with my wife about inner dialog. I had always considered that one's inner dialog was literally conscious thought until I learned that some don't have that at all.
I get literal goosebumps for certain songs, and it is kind of all over the place (music wise). If someone puts on Adele's Rolling in the Deep, the part where she belts out in the chorus, I always get physical goosebumps.
I never realized not everyone can do this, but I also can wiggle my ears, another useless genetic trait.
yes literally, sometimes coupled with an overwhelming rush of emotions that makes my eyes well up (doesn't have to be in a sad way, and depends on the situation and music).
I don't think I have ever experienced this. I do however experience something like the opposite: music I don't like can evoke anything from a mild sense of dread to an almost caged-animal level of irritation - a very physical level of tension I feel all over. Especially horrid are the highly repetitive songs with vapid lyrics which inevitably go on to punish me by becoming an ear-worm infection for hours on end leaving me feeling exhausted. It makes the day seem unendurably long.
I am a bit of an odd duck when it comes to music though. I often go for weeks and weeks without actively seeking out any music at all. Not that I don't like music, I do, but I don't regularly experience that need for it that so many others seem to have. But, when I am programming and need to go into hyper-focus mode, I often find fast-paced Metal is the ticket, energizing and stimulating.
Some IDM tunes gave me shivers in the past, like Bola or Squarepusher.
And most noticably certain letter styles. Berlin graffiti from the late 90s, early 00s. DRM/BAD crews.
I may be even more "special" (in the article's own words) since I can give myself goosebumps at will. It's kinda like flexing a muscle, just on the back of my head.
Funnily, I searched for "I can give myself goosebumps" for the first time just a few days ago, and this[0] article popped out. Same website, identical title. (Then I also searched for "music gives me goosebumps" and got the one posted here.)
I don’t understand most of the words in his qawwalis but yes. His singing was out of this world. Like at the WOMAD festival in 1988: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEIKmwVpOhQ
I listen to music all day while working that frequently triggers frisson. However, I cannot stand ASMR, especially bodily noises including mouth stuff like talking and lip smacking. That might just be Misophonia (TIL) though.
I am the same. I have an irrational hatred of those wet-mouth whisper videos, it makes my skin crawl but not in the same way as this article describes.
It doesn't have to do with being special it's just that music is touching something very deep inside you. It depends both on the intensity of the music and receptivity of the listener and can be developed.
But come on man... this source is absolute garbage. It's not really a readable article. Just a few sentences thrown together, in a very click-baity looking website.
Here is an article, with a research paper attached. https://neurosciencenews.com/music-chills-neuroscience-6167/ https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/6/884/2223400
And another better article https://scroll.in/article/808773/why-do-only-some-people-get...