THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE

Liberace or Lyle Lovett? What we listen to speaks volumes about us.

In this blend of neuroscience and audiophilia, Rogers, who describes herself as “one of the very few successful female record producers in the profoundly male-dominated industry,” has spent a lot of time thinking about the meaning of listening to music. One of her great conversation starters is a “record pull,” asking the person or people you’re with to play their favorite tunes and, in turn, putting yours on the table in a fearless exercise in “self-discovery.” The records you offer have predictive value. For example, if you like David Bowie, you might like Lou Reed—whom Rogers declined to work with on the grounds that she was a little too methodical for the improvisational project he had in mind. Writing with neuroscientist Ogas, Rogers identifies seven dimensions that shape our understanding and appreciation of music, four of them musical (melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre) and three “aesthetic” (authenticity, realism, and novelty). Some are obvious: The songs we walk away humming or dancing to catch us in just the right way. The aesthetic dimensions are subtler. On the matter of authenticity, Rogers holds up the example of the supremely horrible band the Shaggs, who made up in fearlessness what they couldn’t muster in musical skill (“Incompetence. Embarrassing, unsalvageable, breathtaking incompetence”). Interestingly, Rogers argues that nature and nurture play roles in determining musical taste. We have a certain genetic propensity for some kinds of music, but more to the point, it’s experience and exposure that help shape our tolerance for novelty (Zappa or Stockhausen, anyone?) and desire for believability (Hank Williams versus, say, Milli Vanilli). Refreshingly, Rogers urges that we rid ourselves of snobbery, for musical taste is broadly various: “It is the limitless diversity of listener profiles that fuels the infinitely rich art form we love.”

An intriguing look at how what enters our ears shapes our minds.