Monday, 3/30

You know how there's “comfort food”? Well, I wonder if there's such a thing as “comfort music”, as well.

Like I do every so often, I checked my iTunes playing stats to see what I've been listening to recently. That's the radio programmer in me, I guess; for work, I like to know what other people are listening to. And on occasion, I turn the tables and see what I've been checking out. After all, there are days when I can't remember what I had for breakfast, much less what I listened to while running or working out.

Anyway, I just checked to see what I've been listening to, and what I found surprised me. The time period I checked roughly coincides with the time that all this self-quarantining/statewide shutdown stuff started, so I don't know if it should be a surprise or not that I listened mostly to the same music over and over again. The music is what I like to call the “Music of my Childhood”--Philly Soul acts like The Spinners, other R&B Supergroups of the 70s like Sly & The Family Stone, and modern music that pays homage to it (I'm thinking of you, Mayer Hawthorne)—and from the looks of it, I listened to that kind of music and pretty much nothing but that kind of music since the pandemic really hit home.

And that's what got me thinking about “comfort music”. You know how, during times of stress, people tend to eat the foods that calm them down, the foods that they grew up with? Right after 9/11, in fact, there was a study done that showed a nationwide surge in consumption of dishes like macaroni & cheese and meatloaf, meals that would certainly fall into the “comfort foods” category. Well, maybe some people don't turn to comfort “foods” when they're stressed. Maybe some people turn to comfort “music” instead.

While I don't have any hard evidence to back me up, I have a lot of circumstantial evidence to prove my point. Usually when I listen to music, it's all across the musical spectrum. I listen to old stuff, new stuff, local stuff, established artists, artists no one has ever heard of, and artists no one ever wants to hear from again. But not in the last couple of weeks. Nope; in the last couple of weeks, the statistics show that I listened almost exclusively to 70s R&B or to music that is its direct descendant. I apparently skipped over, consciously or subconsciously, anything that didn't fall into that musical category. And since my favorite music while growing up was 70s R&B, only thing conclusion I can come to is that it's my “comfort music”.

Like I said, I've never come across a study that talks about comfort “music”, like I have with comfort “food”, but based on what I saw when checking my iTunes stats, I can't come up with another explanation.

Think I could get someone to pay me to investigate further? Not that I'd want to have us collectively keep going through what we're going through now for an extended period to get more data, but it would be interesting to find out.

(jim@wmqt.com)