All Songs +1: Why We Like The Music We Like
Guests hold up ratings cards at an All Songs Considered listening party in Boston. Kelly Davidson for NPR hide caption
Guests hold up ratings cards at an All Songs Considered listening party in Boston.
Kelly Davidson for NPRWhat goes on in your brain when you hear a new song? Is there a formula for what makes a perfect pop song? What's better, something brand new, or something familiar? It's nearly impossible to completely explain or understand why we like the music we like. But Susan Rogers, a music cognition expert and associate professor of music production and engineering at the Berklee College of Music, gets closer to making sense of it than we've heard before.
Earlier this week, we held a listening party in Boston where Rogers was on a panel of guests who shared and talked about a mix of new and old songs in front of an audience of Berklee students and All Songs listeners. In the latest edition of our Plus One mini podcast, we're going to share a moment from that listening party when Rogers shared some of her ideas about how our brains react to certain kinds of music. It's short, and it's not connected to any particular song, but I bet you'll think about it the next time you hear a new song for the first time.