This Is What It Sounds Like
What the Music You Love Says About You
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This Is What It Sounds Like
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Narrated by:
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Dr. Susan Rogers
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Despite being unable to play an instrument, Susan Rogers became an extraordinarily successful record producer—and certainly one of the most successful women record producers in history—because of her ability to listen. (She was an engineer on Prince's "When Doves Cry", which inspired the title of the book.)
This Is What It Sounds Like distils a lifetime's expertise as a producer and an award-winning professor with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, to present a new theory of listening for everyday music fans. Each person has a unique identity as a listener, she explains, determined by seven influential dimensions of musical listening: authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm and timbre.
In helping listeners understand and embrace their personal musical identity, Rogers explores the different ways music appeals to our mind and body, how falling in love with a song is a lot like falling in love with a person and what your preferred music reveals about what you need to feel whole. Told in a lively, empathetic style, with fascinating stories of encounters with musicians from Prince to Miles Davis to David Byrne, This Is What It Sounds Like will change your musical life.
©2022 Dr Susan Rogers (P)2022 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Your Song Changed My Life
- From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It
- By: Bob Boilen
- Narrated by: Bob Boilen
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
From the beloved host and creator of NPR's All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts comes an essential oral history of modern music, told in the voices of iconic and up-and-coming musicians, including Dave Grohl, Jimmy Page, Michael Stipe, Carrie Brownstein, Smokey Robinson, and Jeff Tweedy, among others - published in association with NPR Music.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Cool if you know all interviewed artists
- By Farfield on 12-05-16
By: Bob Boilen
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Music
- A Subversive History
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a 4,000-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Squeezing cherry-picked facts into a simplistic narrative
- By Erik A. Ritland on 11-24-20
By: Ted Gioia
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The Rest Is Noise
- Listening to the 20th Century
- By: Alex Ross
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 23 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 487
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 305
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Story4 out of 5 stars 301
The Rest Is Noise takes the listener inside the labyrinth of modern music, from turn-of-the-century Vienna to downtown New York in the '60s and '70s. We meet the maverick personalities and follow the rise of mass culture on this sweeping tour of 20th-century history through its music.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Learned so much!
- By Paula on 02-18-08
By: Alex Ross
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Catch a Wave
- The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 209
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 190
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 188
In Catch a Wave, Peter Ames Carlin pulls back the curtain on Brian Wilson, one of popular music's most revered luminaries, as well as its biggest mystery. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before heard studio recordings, Carlin follows the Beach Boys from their earliest days through Brian's deepening emotional problems to his triumphant re-emergence with the release of Smile, the legendarily unreleased album he had originally shelved.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not great
- By J. Barker on 08-08-16
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Chairman at the Board
- Recording the Soundtrack of a Generation
- By: Bill Schnee
- Narrated by: Bill Schnee
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story5 out of 5 stars 36
With over 125 gold and platinum records, and two Grammys for Steely Dan's Aja and Gaucho, Schnee has been called a living legend - recognized and respected in the industry as the consummate music man with an incomparable career that he lovingly shares with listeners in humorous detail.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Worst narration ever!
- By Anonymous User on 01-26-23
By: Bill Schnee
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How Music Works
- The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond
- By: John Powell
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 504
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 420
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Story4 out of 5 stars 412
Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry? Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), and more.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Nearly everyone will get something out of this!
- By Tim on 02-18-11
By: John Powell
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The New Analog
- Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World
- By: Damon Krukowski
- Narrated by: Damon Krukowski
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Having made his name in the late 1980s as a member of the indie band Galaxie 500, Damon Krukowski has watched cultural life lurch from analog to digital. And as an artist who has weathered the transition, he has challenging, urgent questions for both creators and consumers about what we have thrown away in the process.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very Interesting!
- By Daniel Cascaddan on 07-02-17
By: Damon Krukowski
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Solid State
- The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles
- By: Kenneth Womack, Alan Parsons - foreword
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 636
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 548
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 545
In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles' sound and included "Come Together", "Something", and "Here Comes the Sun", which all emerged as classics. Womack's colorful retelling of how this landmark album was written and recorded is a treat for fans of the Beatles. Solid State takes listeners back to 1969 and into EMI's Abbey Road Studios, which boasted an advanced solid state transistor mixing desk.
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1 out of 5 stars
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It's all about the recording studios
- By Tina on 02-18-20
By: Kenneth Womack, and others
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan
- A Portrait
- By: Daniel Mark Epstein
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a vivid, full-bodied portrait of one of the most influential artists of the 20th-century - a man widely regarded as the most important lyricist America has ever produced. Acclaimed poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein frames Dylan against the backdrop of four seminal concerts - all of which he attended. Beautifully written, The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a unique, eye-opening portrait of an artist who has transformed generations and continues to inspire and surprise today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book, excellent narration
- By L chandler on 12-22-11
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The Secret Life of the American Musical
- How Broadway Shows Are Built
- By: Jack Viertel
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 256
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 230
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 230
For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great review lacked music
- By joseph f mcgovern on 10-14-18
By: Jack Viertel
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My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire
- By: Maurice White, Herb Powell
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 547
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 484
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Story5 out of 5 stars 477
The late Grammy-winning founder of the legendary pop/R&B/soul/funk/disco group tells his story and charts the rise of his legendary band in this sincere memoir that captures the heart and soul of an artist whose groundbreaking sound continues to influence music today. With a foreword by David Foster.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Maurice--Earth, Wind and Fire
- By Linda Ealey on 02-28-17
By: Maurice White, and others
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Elton John
- The Biography
- By: David Buckley
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 50
Elton John is as much loved for his outrageous personality and witty outspokenness as for his music. Such shamelessness and sheer silliness rivals anything uttered by punk rockers, yet it is so typically Elton: honest and intemperate. Tragedy and heartbreak have played a large part in his life. Behind the parties, the hedonism, the lavish stage costumes, and silly glasses lies a more somber story. Between disputes with managers, legal wranglings, public breakups, and divorce, John has been faced with serious health problems and drug addictions.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Trite!
- By michael mckone on 08-04-22
By: David Buckley
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The Never-Ending Present
- The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip
- By: Michael Barclay
- Narrated by: George Stroumboulopoulos
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story5 out of 5 stars 44
From our talent-rich neighbor to the north comes this biography of one of the most successful Canadian rock bands, The Tragically Hip, which announced a year-long tour after sharing the news of lead singer Gord Downie’s inoperable cancer. Now available to US listeners, The Never-Ending Present details what led up to the memorable night when music fans all over the world watched Downie’s heroic final performance.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hometown Heroes
- By Tommy Garou on 12-13-18
By: Michael Barclay
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Goodnight, L.A.
- Untold Tales from Inside Classic Rock’s Legendary Recording Studios
- By: Kent Hartman
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
From behind the walls of a handful of well-hidden, unlikely recording studios in the Los Angeles area, legends-in-waiting created masterpiece albums. It was a time of astonishing creativity and unprecedented fame and fortune. It was also a time of unfettered excess that threatened to unravel everything along the way. With access that only a longtime music business insider can provide, Kent Hartman packs Goodnight, L.A. with never-before-told stories about the most prolific time and iconic place in rock 'n' roll history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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great stories and insight into a miraculous time
- By RWM on 05-27-22
By: Kent Hartman