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In 1983, a 25-year-old kid went down into the basement of his Minnesota home and recorded an album. What's truly remarkable is that the music he made sounded like this. He had a recording engineer with him another 20-something named Susan Rogers. These artists didn't turn to her because she was an expert at theory or some sort of musical virtuoso. She couldn't even play an instrument; what she could do was listen. In her mid-40s she quit making records and went back to school, ultimately earning a PhD in psychology.

In this special episode, Susan Rogers, a record producer turned cognitive neuroscientist, and Daniel Levitin, author of “This Is Your Brain on Music,” get together to discuss what music has meant in their lives, debate what separates a great artist from a generic one, and share some of their favorite tunes.

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Susan’s new book, “This Is What It Sounds Like,” was chosen by our curators — Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink — as one of the eight best works of nonfiction published last year. She recently made a beautiful video e-course about the book, which you can experience by downloading the Next Big Idea app.