There's a word for this, stank face. Not sure what genres it is associated with, but I experience it mainly when I listen to and enjoy funk or rap. The "fatter" the beat and the groovier the music, the harder the stank face (I don't know much musical terminology so "fat" will have to suffice).
Now, stank face looks a lot like a disgusted face, hence the name. I wonder why this is. Is it a purely coincidental thing that the face people have when disgusted is the same face people put on when enjoying and showing their respect of music? As in, people learn about it as a way of expressing musical enjoyment (it may be taught implicitly through observation or explicitly), and then they employ it themselves, before it becomes automatic (hence people's reflexive stank face).
Or, is there a neurological link between disgust and the enjoyment of these kinds of music? Is it perhaps a type of synesthesia? If any of the aforementioned possibilities are true, how come this happens more often with certain genres? Do these genres exclusively cause this phenomenon or do they more strongly/often cause this phenomenon? Perhaps all music can cause it, but the expression is more associated with these genres because of its listeners and players having listened more deeply than others, and therefore experienced the effect more greatly, thus causing the association (even though the phenomenon applies to all music)?
A friend of mine suggested that it happened due to the music causing some kind of sensory hyperactivity, of which the brain is only used to when in a disgusted state (as the evolutionary point of disgust is to avoid toxic and poisonous agents), thus causing the brain to misinterpret the stimuli as that of something disgusting.
Worth adding is that a stank face can look like it has elements of anger or irritation in it. However, in my experience, a lot of disgusted faces looks like they have some anger or irritation in them.
