So could you show me like a chord that's major and then a chord that's minor just so we can hear the difference?

Yep. So here's a C major chord.

C minor.

To me, anyone who prefers C major is out of their mind.

Like, I wish them well, but we can't ever fully understand one another or be close friends.

Because C minor is true in C major, that's for selling soap.

Wow, I never knew.

I mean, I know you felt strongly. I didn't know you felt this strongly.

That's me and Andy Thompson, talking shop. He's a composer and a producer who works out of a basement studio called Instrument Landing.

And I'm Dessa, host of the show, Deeply Human. I'm wearing my podcast hat today, but I make my living as a hip-hop artist, and Andy and I are frequent collaborators.

Most of the music that I write is pretty dark, so much so that my bandmates tease me about it, even my fans tease me about it.

Years ago, when I sent an early mix of an album to my mom she said she liked it but then

asked why do you always make music to bleed out to I've loved sad songs since I was a

teenager my favorite genre was arguably total devastation Tracy Chapman's fast car

that was a big one some of my mom's Bonnie Ray at slow jams mess me up pretty good.

And of course, Jeff Buckley's rendition of Hallelujah.

I played them over and over again because they reliably made me feel exquisitely awful.

Listening to sad songs is a weird, counterintuitive thing to do.

Why would anyone willfully gravitate towards something that hurts to hear?

To find out, I'm asking a music critic, a philosopher, an experimental researcher, and a songwriter.

Why do we listen to sad music?

First, let's holler at our critic, someone who listens to music professionally.

...