The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory - John Seabrook

There's a reason hit songs offer guilty pleasure—they're designed that way.

Over the last two decades a new type of hit song has emerged, one that is almost inescapably catchy. Pop songs have always had a "hook," but today’s songs bristle with them: a hook every seven seconds is the rule. Painstakingly crafted to tweak the brain's delight in melody, rhythm, and repetition, these songs are highly processed products. Like snack-food engineers, modern songwriters have discovered the musical "bliss point." And just like junk food, the bliss point leaves you wanting more.

In The Song Machine, longtime New Yorker staff writer John Seabrook tells the story of the massive cultural upheaval that produced these new, super-strength hits. Seabrook takes us into a strange and surprising world, full of unexpected and vivid characters, as he traces the growth of this new approach to hit-making from its obscure origins in early 1990s Sweden to its dominance of today's Billboard charts.

Journeying from New York to Los Angeles, Stockholm to Korea, Seabrook visits specialized teams composing songs in digital labs with new "track-and-hook" techniques. The stories of artists like Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Rihanna, as well as expert songsmiths like Max Martin, Stargate, Ester Dean, and Dr. Luke, The Song Machine shows what life is like in an industry that has been catastrophically disrupted—spurring innovation, competition, intense greed, and seductive new products.

Going beyond music to discuss money, business, marketing, and technology, The Song Machine explores what the new hits may be doing to our brains and listening habits, especially as services like Spotify and Apple Music use streaming data to gather music into new genres invented by algorithms based on listener behavior.

Fascinating, revelatory, and original, The Song Machine will change the way you listen to music.

PRAISE
“An immersive, reflective, and utterly satisfying examination of the business of popular music.” — Nathaniel Rich, The Atlantic

“A revelatory ear-opener.” — Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“Eminently readable and important…. Seabrook's in-depth interviews with an army of songwriters, producers, performers and others make for series of profiles that document a revolution in the music business.” — Shelf Awareness

“Brilliant.” — Michael Hann, The Guardian

“This is a fascinating tale about an amazing phenomenon: how hits get made. A triumph of great writing and reporting, with lessons that reverberate far beyond the world of music.” — Walter Isaacson, author of The Innovators and Steve Jobs

“Beneath the surface of today's pop music lies an industrial process as rigorous and bizarre as the one perfected by McDonald's. Seabrook shows what it takes to make a hit in a book that's beautifully written, revelatory, funny, and full of almost unbelievable details.” — Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Command and Control

“Anyone who wants to understand how the clash of cultures has shaped what we listen to should read this important book. John Seabrook has a marvelous ear for language—and perfect pitch when it comes to music journalism.” — Bob Spitz, author of The Beatles: The Biography

“In The Song Machine, John Seabrook tells of a cutthroat and fascinating industry, where readers discover the gifted musical maestros who orchestrate hit after hit but rarely get their name in print. The narrative shows not just how technology has upended the music business but of how—despite prattle about ‘the long tail’—just one per cent of artists generate 80 per cent of the industry’s profits.” — Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of The World as We Know It