I found this book utterly fascinating all the way through. I love music and we almost always have music playing in our house so I was keen to read this book and to understand more about why we love the music we do. I read this while my husband was in the room and I kept stopping to read parts of the book out loud to him, which we then ended up discussing. It was interesting to learn how people hear music - some it's more about the music, some it's about the lyrics and we're definitely opposites in that regard and it was so cool to learn more about that. I also enjoyed hearing about who the author had worked with, and also her teaching at Berklee. This was such a good read and I highly recommend it to all music fans.

I liked the idea of this book but overall I found it very dry and not particularly enjoyable. Parts were interesting and clearly it had been meticulously researched and thoroughly referenced, but overall I found it quite tedious.

This is a difficult book to review because it’s hard to describe. I don’t think the subtitle helps as it isn’t really about "you", it’s about the author and the psychology of music. Personally I found it fascinating but I am a bit of a nerd and I do find brain science interesting. Ms Rogers has an incredible pedigree coming from ‘nothing’ to being a hugely successful record producer including working with Prince - WOW - and then entering academia and studying neuroscience.

There are loads of nuggets in here that make you think more about what you hear. I liked that the Internet bird (cockatiel?) who could genuinely dance in rhythm made scientists rethink their attitudes to skills they thought only humans had.

I think this is well written although there is a lot of depth and I personally gained a lot from thinking about what I hear and how it came about. I’m off to play some Prince now to honour the author’s talent.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley.

Rogers is a sound engineer who worked for such luminaries as Prince: she went back into education mid-life in order to study psychology and came out with a PhD and as a professor of cognitive neuroscience. Ogi Ogas is more in the background, providing neuroscience detail and notes on research and being credited as co-author.

Rogers' central thesis is that there are seven dimensions of music listening, and by paying attention to these we can work out why we love a particular piece of music / song / record and even learn something about ourselves in the process (I wasn't entirely convinced by this: does my love of the timbre of an American slightly whiny man's voice (They Might Be Giants, REM, Weezer, et al.) really say much about my own personality?). The dimensions themselves are useful pegs to hang decisions about music on: authenticity, melody, realism, rhythm, etc. and the suggestions for tracks to listen to that feature various aspects of these were useful and interesting and enlivened a few dinner times.

There's lots of detail, especially in the later chapters, about what our brain is doing when we hear familiar music or music we score highly when we first hear it.

Woven through the book are details of Rogers' life in music, the developments in the technology of recording and how they changed what music sounded like, her reaction to various songs, records and musicians, and even a chapter on how the facets introduced in this book relate to music production. There are also short pieces from a range of her students and associates on their favourite piece of music and why they love it, so the text stays lively and varied throughout. The notes are great and there's also a website, a playlist and the like to allow you to explore the text and its concepts further.

A really interesting and well done book, never boring or too technical.

By reading this book you can find interesting facts about the author’s life, her music preferences, some music theory, all peppered with some cognitive neuroscience to make it all sound smart. What you will not learn from this book is What the Music You Love Says About You, despite what the titles suggests. If you start this book as I did, thinking that you might learn what the music you listen to says about your psychology, then you will be disappointed. At most, you will find out if you have a music related impairment, such as the inability to follow rhythm or visualise melody. I am not saying the book is not interesting, it is. However, I find the title deceiving.

Susan Rogers, the main author, was the main sound engineer for Prince’s purple rain and went on to become a successful record producer. Then, she decided to study neuroscience and is now a professor cognitive neuroscience. In this book, she writes quite a lot about herself and her preferred music. She also explains that each person has a unique listening profile based on our brain’s natural response to seven key dimensions of any song, such as reality, authenticity, timbre, melody etc. She suggests a series of songs that help exemplify the theory, which I found exciting. The songs can be listened on the dedicated website. She then writes about some cognitive experiments in relation with each dimension, including some impairments that people could have.

If you have a passion for music and you would be interested to learn about the aspects above, then you might find this book is for you.

ARC received thanks to Random House UK, Vintage, Bodley Head

This Is What It Sounds Like is a study of music, by Dr Susan Rogers who worked with such musical luminaries as Prince, and who has written this alongside Ogi Ogas, a neuroscientist (as Rogers now is too). This gives this a very science-based view of music, and though that line may make it sound dry, this book is anything but. Warmth and love for music radiate from every page.

Each chapter of this work focuses on a different aspect of music, and this gives the work a great structure with something interesting to glean on each page.

Best of all, if you love music, this book will introduce you to even more great music and even reshape the way you listen to favourites. The authors at times ask you to listen to a track before continuing to read, and these moments really help inform what you read whilst listening to great music.

This was a great read and highly recommended.

An interesting exploration of how we love certain types of music and not others. The author is a music engineer who has worked with Prince and others, who studied neuroscience in order to understand and make sense of how we choose music we like. I was expecting for a blend of neuroscience and emotions, (so many emotions and feelings connected to music for me), in the same way that therapists are now using neuroscience to understand more about how we think and feel. Sadly for me there was very little about emotions aside from when the author referred to her own life experiences, it was much more technical that I was expecting. Overall I enjoyed finding out about how we develop a listeners profile and would recommend this for those with a scientific mind.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As a diehard music lover, this book was intriguing. The science of why we like certain types of music is utterly fascinating (if a bit dense at times). I most definitely subscribe to the view that you can learn so much about people from their musical tastes because of course, it’s because the enjoyment or comfort of music is attached to our psyches. And music itself is a creation of the composer’s psyche. A fascinating book that I wouldn’t have picked up ordinarily. I recommend this if you want to understand more about the neuroscience behind our music choices.

At first the book seemed to be written from the perspective of a listener, but not long before changing to the author's perspective. I must say, I was curious to learn about my listener's profile, but all I got was the author's.

Here's the premise:

"The dimensions of your listener profile [authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre] serve as distinctive routes through which your body and brain can fall in love with a piece of music. Each dimension contains a personal, neural "sweet spot" where music can provide you with your deepest experience of musical joy.

This leads to a natural question, the question that drives this book: What is it about you that makes you feel the thrill of resonance when you hear one record but the chill of apathy when you hear another? [...] More simply, what makes a person fall in love with a record?"

But there is no scientific answer to that. Not to mention that the subtitle of the book is completely misleading: there is nothing to explain what says about any of us the music we love. There are numerous examples of what the author, and her co-author, and some of her students like, and why they like it, but that's pretty much all.

At one point, the author says that music that evokes memories are best loved. I can't speak for others, but I have a strong feeling that is not the case for the vast majority of music lovers. Maybe just those who are in a bad time of their lives that hear a song which evokes good past times, and they love it for that.

"We each seek out different sorts of experiences and emotional rewards from our musical encounters. Some listeners favor songs that evoke sweet nostalgia, while others crave a groove that matches their inner rhythm. Some listeners prefer to let their imaginations wander freely when they enjoy their favorite records, while others visualize specific scenes evoked by a song's lyrics. Some listeners covet innovative sound design, while for others it's all about that bass."

That's obvious, isn't it? But I'm a bit of all of the above, with a sweet spot for bass guitar and drums. The book doesn't mention any of it.

The records selected as exemplification in regard to different styles, instruments used, timbre, and other traits are chosen from just a few genres, and the most majority (if not almost all) are american musicians. The author loves most soul, blues, and jazz, and those are the most discussed records. Also, there are plenty of memories from her times as a producer, which didn't add any value to the topic.

The neuroscience is tangential, to say the least. There are very few scientific explanations on how the brain works when listening to music, and those mostly feel like phrases from a learning book thrown in here, to sound more pompous.

I'm disappointed, to say the least. The book should have been entitled: My memories from the music industry: what I did and who I worked with, and then I wouldn't have picked it.

If interested, there is a site dedicated to this book, with links to some subjects addressed briefly in the book, and the playlist chosen for each chapter: https://www.thisiswhatitsoundslike.com/

“Gaining insight into a friend’s musical tastes can be an intimate experience that reveals how they see themselves in relation to the world, the value of aesthetic experiences in their lives, or who they want to be when they grow up (or who they wanted to be).”

Well first of all, this book has changed how I will listen to music forever… (in the best way!)

Second of all, I think every book should now come with an accompanying playlist. It was such a wonderfully immersive and educational experience to be able to hear and understand what was being discussed in the text. The satisfying effect blew my mind, honestly.

I get why this book was called “This is what it sounds like” (the author is a talented female music producer / professor who worked with Prince for years) but it’s more accurately a book that explains technically, physically and scientifically, why we ‘fall in love at first listen’ with certain songs. A recipe that is, of course, unique to us all.

Music taste says so much about us; our incredibly individual lives and experiences shape the kind of listeners we become, but this book dives into the production techniques that helps music pass through our ears and straight into our hearts.

“Every deviation from our rhythmic predictions feels like watching a magician make a card disappear.”

Ooft. Enticing, yes? Music is so intimate. And our expectations can be fulfilled or violated in a split second. Music production really is such an exact science, a specialist skill that I never fully appreciated until reading this book.

I highly recommend delving inside it, too.

This is an interesting book if you are a music lover interested in learning what happens in your brain when you listen to music.
It's a well researched and informative book even if a bit too technical at times.
I recommend it if you are interested in neuroscience and music
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I am currently at 25% in this book and what was interesting and engaging is turning into a bit of a slog. The science is getting deeper and whilst quite interesting it's not what I really want to read. Susan Rogers has had an interesting life in music and it was the mention of Prince and the Purple Rain album that drew me in to request the ARC from NetGalley. Well researched and one I shall leave on my kindle and probably go back to after a break.

I love my music and have quite a varied taste in genres and eras so to read this book where Susan Rogers explains the neuroscience, psychology and other factors that influence your listener profile to create personal tastes and reactions to records & songs.
Very interesting and with lots of little snippets of insider gossip & a playlist you can listen along to with all the references I thoroughly enjoyed this book

An amazing book of musical knowledge. I had never given any thought to there being any particular reason for the way we react and feel about our music choices. I was blown away by the author’s in depth explanations of what is going on in our brains when we listen to our records. It really made me think about my music choices and the ones which, for years, have hit my ‘sweet spot’ without my understanding that this is what was happening. I’m just so excited by its content but there’s too much about this book to go into in this review. I’d end up writing a book of my own. Take a trip through your music loves; you may even find a way of revisiting music you’re not keen on and hearing it differently. If, like me, you’ve been having a love affair with your record collection for all your life, do yourself a favour and read this treasure of a book. Discover your sweet spot of music all over again.

An interesting book about the psyche behind your favourite music, and why that may be the case.
Definitely one for the hardcore music fans.
It was good to listen to the music and songs referred to in the chapters to deepen the experience.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.