Song Machine

Inside the Hit Factory

By: John Seabrook

Narrated by: Dion Graham

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.

©2015 John Seabrook. Recorded by arrangement with W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"This is a fascinating tale about an amazing phenomenon: how hits get made. John Seabrook combines a love of music and an appreciation for personalities to take us on a starry journey from Stockholm and London to New York and Orlando showing how creativity gets discovered, polished, and packaged. His book is a triumph of great writing and reporting, and the lessons 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)

Loved it!

Very captivating book about the people behind pop hits. An excellent read if you find songwriting and the process behind hit making interesting.

Imagine this book, but with real songs

I know it is probably hard due to the rights, but this books with song snippets would be just perfect. Otherwise great story and read very nicely. Although sometimes when the narrator was doing women voices it was a bit much.

Music history in a nutshell

Lots of great info here told in a journalistic way. I am an artist/songwriter and I found the information here very enlightening in confirming my own beliefs and experiences in the music industry. Although some parts lagged, there are some truly engaging parts in the book such as the anecdotes about the rise of boy bands and the Swedish pop takeover.

I would highly recommend it as a good resource for up and coming songwriters to get them familiar with the history of the industry they are about to embark upon. It is also a good read for the casual music fan, but might be a lacking in excitement for the non-technical music lay person.

Great book!

A great book for anyone who is interested in the Pop music industry.
very interesting stories and good story telling.

Best

I've read several books on the music industry and on hit songwriting, but none has ever provided as many real world examples, valuable insights into the lives of the people who are actually out there leading this industry, meaningful stories involving important personalities, and above all... Tying them into the context of each chapter and extracting the useful points to be learned from each. I will be listening to this book many more times from now, because now i feel like I understand the industry better than ever, and find myself empowered on this knowledge. This is also my first audiobook review here. After so many books I finally struck gold with this one.

Contemporary pop music history as cautionary fun

The author knows how to craft an interesting tale anot what happened behind the scenes to make a hit song, the ones we recognize and hum along to today. The making of Ace of Base,, the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Rihanna, and Katy Perry are some of the artists whose true tales are told, with backgrounds you maybe weren't aware of. While moving alling chronologically, you find out anot the ties and overlaps amongst three artists -- those who perform on the mic and those who wrote, produced or engineered the song performed.

The narrator serves the book extremely well. Without breaking into full song, he handles the sing-songy nature of the written words with ease, and he gives each person a personality of their own. He told this non-fiction work as if it wasn't, and made the retelling of musical history feel as if you were there at the time.

It was both informative and enjoyable.

Awesome.

Best book on the music indistry ever. It was so interesting to hear how stars are made and I will probably even reread this future.

Pretty good insight into the music game.

As someone who creates, I head about this book via a recommendation from another music creator. Nice insight into people's processes and the struggles that go into making hits!

My only beef is that he mispronunces some names. The other voices were cool-it added some variety to the story.

New Insights Into My Career

Looking at pop music production/writing from the perspectives of the best in the world has really allowed me to feel the emotions that world brings. Thanks for writing this! I’m still on track but have much more insight about what it really means to make radio hits.

One of my favorite books

I love the behind the scenes stuff about the music industry. This is all the music I grew up with too - I'm 26.

People think they like all these artists, but it's more typically the work of a small handful of producers who are the hit makers. This book does a great job outlining that.