The Song Machine, John Seabrook
The Song Machine, John Seabrook
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List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
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The Song Machine
Inside the Hit Factory

Author: John Seabrook

Narrator: Dion Graham

Unabridged: 9 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/05/2015


Synopsis

New Yorker staff writer John Seabrook tells a fascinating story of creativity and commerce that explains how songs have become so addictive.

Over the last two decades a new type of song has emerged. Today's hits bristle with "hooks," musical burrs designed to snag your ear every seven seconds. Painstakingly crafted to tweak the brain's delight in melody, rhythm, and repetition, these songs are industrial-strength products made for malls, casinos, the gym, and the Super Bowl halftime show. The tracks are so catchy, and so potent, that you can't not listen to them.

Traveling from New York to Los Angeles, Stockholm to Korea, John Seabrook visits specialized teams composing songs in digital labs with novel techniques, and he traces the growth of these contagious hits from their origins in early '90s Sweden to their ubiquity on today's charts.

Featuring the stories of artists like Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Rihanna, as well as expert songsmiths like Max Martin, Ester Dean, and Dr. Luke, The Song Machine will change the way you listen to music.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Scotto

I'll admit this book goes down smooth, like a pop hit record; I ripped through it in fascination. But we'll see how kind history is to a book that essentially concludes with multiple chapters of Dr. Luke getting the equivalent of a Parade magazine profile, while Kesha is dismissed in one of those ch......more

Goodreads review by Greg

Fantastic! Great to learn about the small world of people who've made all the most annoying songs for the last 20+ years.......more

Goodreads review by Roy

When I was quite young, somebody gave my brother and me a new toy for Christmas. It was a little plastic speaker, which played 60-second clips from popular songs from tiny memory cards called “HitClips.” Though primitive in retrospect, at the time it seemed like incredible technology—to us kids, at......more