Music might be the greatest mood enhancer in the world: it’s certainly hard to think of another art form that can so effectively tip a feeling of happiness into euphoria or create a suitably gloomy space in which to wallow in melancholy. There have always been albums designed to evoke a certain mood, from Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely to Essential Chill Out Vol 2. But in recent years, we seem to have become more interested in the relationship between music and mood. Streaming services are thick with mood-based playlists. There appear to be hundreds of the things on Spotify, from the straightforward (Happy Vibes) to the vague (All the Feels), and they appear to have struck a nerve: Spotify’s own curated mood playlists are now vastly outnumbered by user-generated ones, soundtracking everything from Friday at the Office to – I swear I’m not making this up – Losing Someone to Suicide.
