The symphony ended and after much applause the audience moved out of the warmth of the hall and into the cold night air. It had been one of the best performances of recent months and you could feel the excitement as the crowd moved down the street. Taxis seemed to appear from nowhere to convey people home，while others sought out bars and restaurants. Everyone was chatting excitedly and the magic of the performance carried on in their minds.

This had been a traditional classic，with none of the clumsy notes so loved by the so-called modernists. The music had thrilled the soul and assisted in lifting the spirits to a higher level. Perhaps in these hard times someone might learn this valuable lesson. What was wanted was traditional works that attracted crowds，not the shameful and incomprehensible pieces that had left so many seats unoccupied for so long.

As the people left they seemed to carry some of the performances along with them. It was like the fragrance of a rose bush carried by a gentle wind，sweet and exciting，yet at a distance the source unknown. A few hummed（哼）the tunes as they walked along，spreading their enjoyment far and wide. Long into the night you could still feel the emotion of the music and as dawn rose over the city the next day，the last faint echoes（回声）still remained as people returned to work.

Critics are critics；they are never really interested in ordinary people and simple pleasures. Where was the skill in simply playing well to a fascinated audience？What was advanced by the performance of well-known overtures（序曲）？So，as would be expected，they used their usual phrases and quotations to belittle（贬低）the traditional classics. As a result，the pop returned. And within a week the concert hall was almost empty again.

At least since the appearance of Napster (一个文件共享平台), in 1999, the Internet’s potential effect on music listeners has often been portrayed as dramatic. Music bloggers, the iPod’s massive storage capabilities, and most recently, the virtually unlimited browsing potential afforded by streaming — put together, they would surely pave the way for a generation to whom eclecticism (折衷主义) was normal. Human curiosity could finally win, and the super-listener would rise.

Little in the modern music landscape suggests that this has come to pass. Quite the contrary, which is an important assumption of the New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff’s Every Song Ever: 20 Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty. In the past decade or so, traditional radio stations have cut down the number of songs they played and increased the frequency of repetition, because listeners are less likely to switch away from tunes they recognize. Successful online playlist makers such as Pandora continually fine-tune algorithms (算法) to figure out what individual users want to hear based on what they’ve liked before. And music journalists working online have come to understand that defending little-known artists commands far less traffic — and therefore less job security — than does promotion of the latest Taylor Swift video or Beatles anniversary.

Ratliff wisely diagnoses the psychology underlying this state of affairs. “In many cases, having rapidly acquired a new kind of listening brain — a brain with unlimited access — we dig very deeply and very narrowly, creating bottomless comfort zones in what we have decided we like and trust,” he writes. “Or we shut down, threatened by the endless choice. The riches remain dumb unless we have an engaged relationship with them.”

An “engaged relationship”— what’s that? Well, you know: Active listening. Open listening. The kind of listening that happened more often when switching from an unfamiliar song back to an old favorite wasn’t so frictionless — when the unfamiliar song had cost you $16.99 and a trip to Tower Records to acquire, and the old CD was gathering dust somewhere under your bed. Ratliff has 20 suggestions, mostly good ones, for how to achieve this level of engagement in a world overflowing with new and strange, and instantaneously available, sounds. He reminds us, as he proceeds, of how urgently we need adventurous critics like him at a time when the idea of musical discovery has been appropriated by tech companies and sidelines in the chase for clicks.

We pick the upbeat tunes for parties and workouts, and save the low-key songs for romantic or sad moments. It’s hardly a new idea that music is mixed with our emotions. But how have our favorites changed over the decades, and what do these changes say about America’s shifting emotional landscape (景象)?

Researcher E. Glenn Schellenberg set out to examine songs popular in America during the last five decades, using a selection from Billboard Magazine’s Hot 100 charts, hoping to learn how emotional cues (提示) in music, such as tempo (slow to fast) and mode (major or minor key), have changed since 1960.

The most striking finding is the change in key. Songs written in a major key tend to sound warm and high-spirited, while songs in a minor key can sound darker and more melancholic (忧郁的). Over the last few decades, popular songs have switched from major to minor keys. Broadly speaking, the sound has shifted from bright and happy to something more complex. The study also finds America’s popular songs have become slower and longer. Even more interesting, is that our current favorites are more likely to be emotionally ambiguous, such as sad-sounding songs being fast or happy-sounding songs being slow.

A possible explanation for the changes is that the more contemporary music reflects the hardships that our society has gone through. However, Schellenberg believes that the steady increase in length and decrease in tempo doesn’t support the idea of growing difficulties fully because it would mean our problems have increased steadily over the last fifty years. He suggests that popular songs have become more complex over time because Americans are becoming more diverse and individualized in their musical tastes.

Though we can only guess about the specific causes of this evolution in music, Schellenberg’s initial observations have helped to open the door to research on the link between emotion and music consumption. Perhaps someday we’ll learn more of the secrets behind the music we love and the times we live in.