Love Lamentation in Pop Songs: Music for Unhappy Lovers?

Abstract

Abstract. The investigation builds on and extends demonstrations in the U.S. that romantically disenchanted men and women are attracted to love-lamenting music. The current focus is on preferences of young German adults (n = 52). Ascertainment of respondents’ romantic situation was followed by a period in which they could listen to top-chart love songs, with lyrics expressing either celebration of happy love or lamentation of unrequited/lost love. Songs were presented via computer in a private listening situation. For a restricted period, respondents freely sampled from available songs. Exposure to sad love music was unobtrusively recorded. Amorously frustrated men exposed themselves longer to love-lamenting music than did more content men. Romantically disenchanted women similarly favored such music more than more hopeful women did. However, women in happy relationships exhibited an unexpectedly strong preference for music denouncing love. Thus, regarding men, findings fully replicate earlier observations; regarding women, the replication was only partial.