The subproject’s subject is the sentimental ballad: a musical form occurring in all song-oriented genres that often includes the greatest hits while being devaluated in discourses and feminized by ascription. Based on the ballad as ‘low pop’-phenomenon, the project in-vestigates the common ground of experiencing sentimental affects, the dynamically gen-dered connotations of popular genres as well as the persistence of the high/low-difference within the popular. The corpus of the compilation series Kuschelrock (‘Cuddle Rock’) – comprising more than 1,200 ballads from rock, pop and soul – serves as the pro-ject's starting point.