Musical Chills Related to Brain Dopamine Release

[Music plays] Did Pavarotti finishing Nessun Dorma give you chills? If so, you can thank the molecule dopamine for those shudders of delight. Because a new study shows that musical thrills stem from the same brain chemistry responsible for the joys of food, sex and other more tangible rewards. The work appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience. [Valorie Salimpoor et al, Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music]

Many of the activities that give us pleasure are things that we, as a species, need to survive, like the aforementioned eating and mating. But what about more esoteric enjoyment, from evocative music or other works of art? Do they tickle the brain the same way?

To find out, scientists recruited subjects who reliably gets shivers when they listen to an affecting score. These chills are a more consistent, in-the-moment measure of pleasure than asking subjects to describe what they’re feeling.

The scientists then used brain imaging techniques to find that dopamine peaks along with emotional arousal. Such induced dopamine release could explain why people put a high value on some music. And why music can manipulate our emotions.

—Karen Hopkin

The Great EDM War has Begun

Interesting article about the business side of EDM from EDMsnob:

 

"Letting the corporate world into EDM is like letting a thief take your house and then sell it back to you brick by brick. There, I said it.

By now, it’s no secret. The world of corporate music and concerts wants your house.

…And your trance, your dubstep, your electro, and your drum and bass, too. They want whatever you want, so that they can sell it back to you note-by-note and wobble-by-wobble.

Since our original expose about Insomniac’s Electric Daisy Carnival, I’ve spoken to a lot of people in the industry, and many others in the live EDM business have spoken out on their own publicly. Let’s recap on what I’ve learned.

There are two big factions in the live EDM business, and both of them are in a gold rush to acquire independent promoters and become bigger and more powerful than the other one.

The first is Live Nation Entertainment, which you may know as Ticketmaster, the service-charging powerhouse of the ticketing world. In the last year, they’ve acquired Creamfields and Hard Events, bringing on the respective leaders of those companies and building strategies to further increase their influence.

The second entity is what will eventually be known as SFX Entertainment, which includes Disco Donnie Presents. Originally I thought that this company had spun off from Insomniac’s touring events division entirely. What I now know is that Disco Donnie took back the approximately 20 local affiliate companies that he delivered to Insomniac around 2010, and sold that whole entity to Robert Sillerman and SFX Entertainment. Insomniac and Disco Donnie Presents are still partners on the massives (including Electric Daisy Carnival), so we’ll lump these companies together.