You know when you’re listening to your favourite band, and they get to that bit, that rift where the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you get a chill down your spine? Well a recent study by a team at McGill University have shown that listening to music, and even the anticipation of it leads to a release of dopamine (the good stuff) in the brain, which makes you feel happy. Dopamine release has been linked to the obvious, the physical activities like eating, sex and taking drugs, but this is the first time a connection has been made with a more abstract experience.

So now we know why we love it, we looked at where the most common places to listen to music were. Interestingly we found that almost 60% of our sample said that home was where they most often listened to music. We love data visualizations, so we decided to knock-up this little graphic to show this pattern of listening.

Have a look at our up-coming Audience Survey 2011 for some more interesting musical trends.