In our hunter-gatherer or forager days, we had to band together in order to protect ourselves from predators or enemy tribes and one of the evolutionary forces behind that was singing together around a campfire. And people who sing together experience a release of the chemical oxytocin; and oxytocin causes feelings of trust to be increased and causes you to feel more socially bonded to the people you’re around.

So if you really like music and you’re listening to it, because of this chemical release you’re going to feel trustful toward and bonded with the artist.

-- McGill U professor Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (Globe & Mail)