Collective Effervescence: Music as Medicine for Disconnection

By Susan Abbott, organizer of Analog Salon

We are living through a paradox: an era of unprecedented digital connection paired with a rising tide of social isolation. Our devices allow us to communicate instantly across the globe, yet many of us feel more emotionally adrift than ever. The very tools designed to bring us closer often leave us lonelier.

This disconnect has grown increasingly urgent. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a landmark advisory declaring loneliness and social disconnection a national epidemic. Nearly half of U.S. adults report experiencing measurable levels of loneliness, with young people among the most affected. The health consequences are serious: social isolation increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, and premature death—comparable, the advisory warned, to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Even before this warning, researchers and writers were raising alarms about the emotional toll of our digital lives. Psychologist Sherry Turkle, in her 2011 book “Alone Together,” argued that we’ve come to expect more from machines and less from each other. Our screen-based connections offer the illusion of companionship without the demands—or rewards—of real intimacy. 

“We are lonely,” she wrote, “but fearful of intimacy.”

The COVID-19 pandemic made these patterns painfully clear. Cut off from daily interactions, many people turned to technology for connection—and found it lacking. But alongside this isolation, something more hopeful began to stir: people reached for music. Not just for entertainment, but for solace. For structure. For community.

At the heart of this is a concept first articulated by French sociologist Émile Durkheim: collective effervescence. He described it as the emotional energy that emerges when people come together around a shared experience—moments of synchrony that dissolve the boundaries between individuals and create a sense of shared meaning and belonging. You’ve likely felt it at a concert when the crowd sings as one, at a dance party where strangers move in rhythm, or even in a quiet room when a single song resonates with everyone present.

Music, perhaps more than any other art form, generates this kind of electricity. It collapses distance. It fosters presence.

A 2023 study published in Music and Medicine reviewed how people used music to cope with pandemic-era isolation. Across nine separate studies, nearly 90 percent of participants said music helped reduce feelings of loneliness. Whether listening alone or sharing playlists with others, music provided a form of emotional scaffolding—something to hold onto when familiar support systems had vanished.

Live music amplifies this effect. A large-scale analysis of 18,000 concertgoers featured in The Conversation, found that attending performances strengthened social bonds. Participants described how concerts deepened friendships, sparked conversations with strangers, and built a shared sense of identity. These are textbook cases of collective effervescence—durable, embodied reminders that we are not alone.

But resisting the emotional flattening of digital life is more than personal—it’s cultural, too. Musicians have raised concerns about how streaming and algorithm-driven platforms have reshaped our relationship with music. 

Jarvis Cocker, frontman of Pulp, reflected on how streaming has harmed how we interact with music in a recent New Yorker interview, noting that today’s digital listening habits often lack the structure and intentionality of earlier eras. He described the experience of navigating endless digital libraries as “formless,” lamenting the loss of ritual around music [Editor’s Note: including the rituals of your favorite local record store, we assume]. His underlying worry is that when songs become background noise—curated by platforms rather than people—they risk losing the emotional depth and disruption that once made them transformative.

Robert Smith of The Cure, an artist fiercely protective of music’s emotional integrity, voiced his frustration with Ticketmaster’s pricing practices ahead of the band’s 2023 Shows of a Lost World tour. On Twitter, he called dynamic pricing “a scam” and decried excessive service fees, saying he was “sickened” by what fans were being charged. After engaging directly with Ticketmaster, Smith persuaded the company to issue partial refunds—a rare win for concertgoers in an increasingly commodified live music industry.

The album itself, dark and expansive, feels like a slow-burning resistance to digital disposability—an invitation into a shared emotional landscape rather than a quick dopamine hit. Cure fans—some now attending shows with their children (I count myself in this parent group)—don’t just stream the music. They gather around it. In black eyeliner and vintage tour tees, they come to commune, not just consume. At their 2023 North American tour opener in New Orleans, reviewers described moments of collective emotion so powerful that “there wasn’t a dry eye in the house” during “Plainsong.” In Los Angeles, Robert Smith dedicated the same song to his wife. And in Denver, at a packed show at Fiddler’s Green, the energy was just as reverent. After the final encore, many in the crowd stayed, lingering in the resonance of the night. This is collective effervescence—Durkheim by way of goth heartbreak—and it’s alive and well.

I experienced something similar last year at a double-header show at Denver’s Paramount Theater, where Johnny Marr and James played back-to-back sets. For those of us who grew up with their music, it was a night of pure connection. The packed house—shoulder to shoulder—sang along and danced together from start to finish. It wasn’t just a wave of nostalgia; it felt genuinely energizing. People smiled, danced, and remembered. A moment of collective joy—simple, real, and shared. This experience aligns with research highlighting the power of music and collective listening.

It’s no coincidence that analog formats like vinyl have resurged in recent years. Listening to records is tactile and slow. You select a record, place it on the turntable, lower the needle. You don’t scroll or shuffle. You stay with the music, moment by moment. In a culture optimized for speed and distraction, this kind of attention feels almost rare.

Some of these efforts gained traction during the pandemic. In 2020, Tim Burgess, frontman of The Charlatans, launched “Tim’s Listening Party” on Twitter, before it was bought and turned into X. Musicians and fans across the world would press play on the same album and tweet along in real time. A modest idea that became a global ritual: a virtual congregation bound together by memory, music, and meaning.

The lesson is clear: we don’t just need information. We need resonance.

And that’s what music provides, especially when shared. Whether through a basement jam, a DJ set, or an intimate listening circle, music opens a space where emotional expression is not only allowed but expected. It invites us to slow down, show up, and feel with others.

In a moment marked by anxiety, division, and digital fatigue, collective effervescence offers a powerful antidote. It reminds us that we are not simply individuals scrolling through parallel lives—we are part of something larger. Music makes that visible. It’s not just medicine for disconnection. It’s a spark.

[Editor’s Note: You can try your hand at “collective effervescence” at 5pm on Thursday at Denver’s first Analog Salon at the Posner Center, 1031 33rd Street Denver, CO 80205.]