The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (Signed Second Printing)

Seabrook, John

ISBN 10: 0393241920 / ISBN 13: 9780393241921

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2015

About this Item

About the book: Hardcover with jacket. First Edition, Second Printing. Signed by author on title page. Both book and jacket are in near fine condition with mild wear. Additional photos available upon request. We're not satisfied unless you are. Seller Inventory # 001956

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (...

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Publication Date: 2015

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Near Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

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.

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About the Author:

John Seabrook has been a staff writer at The New Yorker for more than three decades. The Spinach King is his fifth book. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.