Obviously, the students enjoyed pop music the most, but the classical music made the cafeteria and the students feel special, North says. A paper published last year by one of North’s PhD students, Emma Flynn, also looked at supermarket music and buying habits. It found that playing country music resulted in an increase in the purchases of utilities, while classical music, again, had people reaching further into their pockets for luxury items. Could the supermarkets be cluey to North’s research, settling for a diet of the latest pop music as a kind of limbo land between country music and classical? The musicologist finds it surprising that neither of the big two supermarkets in Australia does much to differentiate itself from the other.

Source: The Guardian December 05, 2021 05:49 UTC