Susan Rogers is a remarkable person. After a successful career as a music engineer and producer, she retired from the industry, using royalties from producing the Barenaked Ladies to become a scientist. She earned a doctorate in psychology from McGill University, studying music cognition and psychoacoustics, and currently teaches at Berklee College of Music. Prince fans know her through her work during the period that produced a series of amazing, famous albums. The opportunity came about by chance when Prince hired her as his audio technician during the making of
Purple Rain. She rapidly transitioned to become his engineer, effectively taking part in the creation of music by one of the most significant musicians in our lifetime. In an engaging interview at Loop 2017, she addresses wide-ranging topics about music.
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Earlier this year, Lil Nas X and the company MSCHF produced a line of limited-run shoes in tandem with his song “Montero (Call Me by Your Name).” These so-called Satan Shoes contained a drop of human blood and sold out within an hour. Unfortunately, MSCHF had simply modified pairs of Nike Air Max 97s, thus prompting a lawsuit by Nike for copyright infringement. Lil Nas X already had the dreaded “copyright infringement” tag hanging on his name for his 2018 song “Carry On.” Three months later, in October 2019, came another infringement lawsuit for his 2019 song “Rodeo.” What’s going on? Continue reading →
In a post last year explaining 
A couple of young performers I know—a singer and and a rapper—recently exposed me to the concept of licensing music tracks from a producer. I’m not talking about royalty-free music or beats, for which you pay a flat fee. No, these fully-realized tracks are governed by narrow limitations where the producer has complete control and the artist almost none. I want to talk about how these are usually a terrible idea for recording artists.