From Prince’s sound engineer to neuroscientist: Susan Rogers knows why you love your favourite music

SINGAPORE – When it comes to music, one person’s pleasure can be another person’s poison. And auditory neuroscientist Susan Rogers, who used to make records with stars such as the late American singer Prince, can tell you why.

The writer of This Is What It Sounds Like: What The Music You Love Says About You will be in town as one of the speakers at the 2023 Singapore Writers Festival (SWF).

On Nov 26, she will host a meet-the-author session titled Take A Bad Song And Make It Better.

The 67-year-old American says in a Zoom interview: “Someone will say, ‘My wife has terrible taste in music. Is there any way I can get her to like the music that I like?’ Or someone might say, ‘I used to love this kind of music, and then I got a little older, and now I like a completely different style. What does that say about me?’”

In her 2022 book, co-written with American neuroscientist Ogi Ogas, Rogers states that everyone has a unique listener profile based on how his or her brain reacts to seven aspects of recorded music: authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm and timbre.

This Is What It Sounds Like has an accompanying website and playlist where readers can listen to the music and songs referenced in its pages. The extensive list covers many genres and crosses several time periods, from classical pieces such as Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magnificat BWV 243 to modern pop hits like Olivia Rodrigo’s Drivers License.

Rogers says: “I wrote the book specifically for people who are not professional musicians, people who are music lovers, music listeners.”

She will also be part of another SWF event on Nov 25, where she is one of the speakers in What Beats Do To Lyrics, a discussion on the relationship between rhythms and language.

Part of the 50 Years Of Bars, Flows And Beats segment, the event celebrates 50 years of hip-hop and also features deejay and creative influencer Charlie Dark and sound designer and deejay Ramesh Krishnan, and is moderated by poet, singer and songwriter Will Beale.

In her book, Rogers includes many personal details and anecdotes from her life in music.

In the 1970s, she started out as a technician in music studios in California, moving to Minneapolis in 1983 to eventually become Prince’s engineer.

She worked closely with the late singer, composer and musician on some of his most famous hits, including Purple Rain and When Doves Cry from his ground-breaking 1984 album Purple Rain. He died in 2016, aged 57.

Prince liked giving chances to people who did not fit the traditional mould, she adds. “The typical technician is a man, and I wasn’t. Prince liked having somebody who was a little bit different than what you would normally see. I could do the job, of course. I was good at my work.”

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Prince had a famously aloof public persona, but Rogers reveals that, in private, he was “a very loving person”.

“There was so much that he was in charge of, his music and his clothes and his business empire that he was building, and he was only 25 years old,” she says of the time she worked with him at his commercial peak in the 1980s. “In order to be able to do that, he needed privacy, he needed to cut himself off from people to a certain extent.”

She adds: “But when you were alone with him making records, at rehearsal, going to the movies or riding around in the car and listening to music, he was very smart, very funny, very driven, very ambitious, a very lovable guy. This is why I still have such love, affection and respect for him today.”

Rogers went on to work as engineer and producer to many other notable artistes, such as Scottish-American singer David Byrne. She also co-produced Canadian alternative rock band Barenaked Ladies’ 1998 album Stunt, which included One Week, a hit song that went to No. 1 on the American charts.

As a producer, she continues to receive “a good sum of money” in royalties for that record.

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While her peers might use royalties to pay off a mortgage, build a home studio or buy an expensive car, Rogers saw the windfall as a chance to leave the music business and go back to school.

She eventually got a doctorate in psychology after studying music cognition and psychoacoustics. Today, the associate professor teaches young musicians at Berklee College of Music in Boston in the United States.

Music-listening habits went through a marked change throughout the decades, she says. When she was younger, listening to music was a social activity that people did with friends.

“Where we are today is private, personalised music libraries,” she says. Her students discuss music with one another because they are musicians, but for the average person, she notes, music consumption is a very private exercise.

Young music fans are also very adept at multitasking, she adds. “A young person’s brain can be listening to music and reading at the same time or scrolling through their phone, or be on their laptop.”

That posits a challenge to her students and contemporary music makers.

“Today, most people, increasingly, are pushing music into the background of your attention. That means for music-makers, they’ll have to make music a little bit differently if they want to capture the public’s attention.”

Book it/Susan Rogers: Take A Bad Song And Make It Better

Where: Chamber, The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament LaneWhen: Nov 26, 10amAdmission: Festival Pass from $15
Info: str.sg/ixPD

Book it/What Beats Do To Lyrics

Where: Play Den, The Arts HouseWhen: Nov 25, 8pmAdmission: Festival Pass from $15
Info: str.sg/ixPr