When it comes to musical tastes, people tend to favor songs with lyrics that correspond to their attachment style - researchers in the psychology department of the University of Toronto have found in a study that involved asking 570 people about their favourite songs. The participants were asked a series of questions about their relationship histories. The analysis of more than 7,000 songs revealed that people tended to like song lyrics that related to their attachment style in intimate relationships. This means most people tend to like songs that spell out what they are going through in a relationship. Vice reports about the study.

The global recording industry association IFPI, released 'Engaging with Music 2022', the largest music study on how people around the world enjoy and engage with music. It is based on the responses of more than 44,000 people in 22 countries. Highlights of the 2022 report include:

• Music fans are listening to more music today than ever before, spending on average 20.1 hours listening to music weekly - up from 18.4 hours in 2021.
• 46% of respondents use subscription audio streaming services, which offer uninterrupted and on-demand access to millions of licensed tracks.
• 69% of people say music is important to their mental health, 68% say that music is important when they exercise.

In his latest post, music writer Ted Gioia presents a scientific basis for his alternative musicology—a holistic way of thinking about songs and their impact on individuals and societies. He makes the argument that too much of our world today is controlled by left-hemisphere-of-the-brain worldview — analytic and detail-oriented - and calls for the right hemisphere - controls creativity, intuition, and imagination - to take over. "The simplest way to tap into the right hemisphere is music… The connection between songs and the right hemisphere of our brains is so strong that stroke victims who have lost the language-making capacity of their left brain are sometimes still able to sing words they can no longer speak". A great intro to the theory.

Latin American countries are the top consumers of music worldwide, by a wide margin, according to data culled from the IFPI's recently released "Engaging With Music" report, Billboard reports. In Mexico, people consume most music per capita - 25.7 hours per week, compared to an average of 18.4 hours per week across the globe. At No. 2 is Brazil, where fans listen to 25.4 hours of music per week. Finally, Argentina -- the third Latin American country included in the study -- is at No. 6, consuming 22.6 hours of music per week. It's not a new thing - these stats have remained relatively stable since IFPI began doing this particular research several years ago. The report surveyed music consumption habits of 43,000 people in 21 countries.

A 469 million-year-old fossil of a newly discovered species of conodonts (extinct jawless vertebrates that closely resemble eels) has just been named after founding Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, Blabbermouth reports. A team of Danish and Swedish paleontologists retrieved the fossil from a succession of limestone in western Russia which, during the Ordovician Period (a 45-million year period dating 488.3 million years back), formed sea floor sediments. Mats E. Eriksson, one of the paleontologists on the mission, has an extensive background in naming newly discovered fossils after heavy metal legends, having already honored Motorhead leader Lemmy Kilmister, Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster and singer King Diamond in the fossil.

The effect of background music on concentration largely depends on a person’s personality and taste, but work-appropriate music tends to share a few general qualities - Maria A.G. Witek, a professor in the Department of Music at Birmingham University, states in a new study she co-authored. The best kind of music to listen to while working should have no vocals, Witek says, because lyrics tend to be distracting. The music should also be slow, repetitive, and soft. Tram Nguyen, a member of the Cambridge Brain Sciences Team, recently also found some evidence that low-tempo songs may benefit the regions of the brain responsible for memory and completing tasks. Elemental reports on the science of music to work to.

Universal Music Group has signed a first-of-its-kind partnership with digital therapeutics company MedRhythms, in order to help people with walking impairments, Rolling Stone reports. The partnership provides MedRhythms with access to UMG’s catalog in order to build “direct stimulation solutions” that use clinical-grade sensors, software and music to help restore function lost to neurologic disease or injury. MedRhythms is developing a patented platform of evidence-based, prescription digital therapeutics using music to address walking impairments.

The pattern of music downloads after their release appears to closely resemble epidemic curves for infectious disease - mathematicians from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada have found. The team followed the pattern of 1,000 songs downloaded in the UK between 2007 and 2014, measuring how well a standard model of epidemic disease, called the SIR model, fitted trends in song downloads over time. The research found the model performed just as well when describing song download trends as it did when describing the spread of a disease through the population. In their research, electronic music turned out to be the most infectious genre of all. Guardian reports about the interesting study.

“When we watch something or listen to something that undeniably does make us feel sad at some level, it’s not like we’re only seeking to feel sad” - Mary Beth Oliver, PhD, a professor of media studies at Penn State University Oliver told Elemental. “I think we’re trying to have a greater insight into the bigger questions — the purpose of life, or of human virtue” - sha added. Rather than “sad", she said she prefers terms like “meaningful” or “poignant” or “bittersweet”. “It’s absolutely possible to feel good about feeling sad sometimes,” she said. “Our emotions are much richer than some of these blunt terms we use”.

Sarah Brand, a student of sociology at Oxford University, has released a song 'Red Dress', which she said was a "cinematic, holistic portrayal of judgement". The A.V. club said the video invited a "kind of car wreck curiosity", while Newsweek debated whether it was part of a "grand social experiment". BBC explores what's behind the out-of-tune song.