The Consumer Experience, Shaped by Emotions: An Exploratory Qualitative Study of Moroccan Generation X and Baby Boomer Listeners

This exploratory qualitative study examines how the emotions evoked by music listening contribute to significant autobiographical memories among Moroccan Generation X and Baby Boomer listeners and how these memories shape their subsequent listening and re-listening practices, understood here as a form of experiential music consumption.We conducted 17 semi-structured interviews (10 in French, 7 in Moroccan Arabic [Darija]) with 13 Generation X and 4 Baby Boomer participants living in nine Moroccan cities, recruited through convenience and snowball sampling.Interviews were transcribed, translated into English using DeepL and checked by bilingual authors.Data were analysed through manual inductive thematic analysis, coded collaboratively by consensus, with a coding log and member checking (13 of 17 participants).Three themes were identified: (1) the daily integration of music into routines for functional or introspective purposes; (2) music as a trigger of autobiographical memory, with emotions that are mostly positive but often ambivalent and tinged with nostalgia; and (3) re-listening guided by the search for emotional comfort, the cathartic search for melancholy or the selective avoidance of painful memories.Four analytical profiles (regulation, memory, catharsis and identity) were also constructed.Several participants described regulating mood and sustaining memories with a partner or family, or through intergenerational transmission, which we interpret tentatively as a relational and shared dimension that Western-based models do not explicitly theorise.Loyalty and purchasing behaviour were not measured; the implications for streaming platforms, brands and event organisers are therefore presented as hypotheses for future research.