I WENT WINE SHOPPING recently in New Jersey. Bruce Springsteen was playing on the store’s sound system—naturally. The Boss is an inescapable musical presence in his home state. Why not in a wine shop? But maybe because “Glory Days” isn’t one of my favorites (my tastes, Bruce-wise, tend toward “Thunder Road”), I found the music distracting. Instead of focusing on the Chablis selection, I was rifling through alternate Springsteen tunes in my head. Was this really what the retailer wanted me to do?

Several studies produced over...