The song machine
by John Seabrook, Dion Graham · first published 2015
69% recommend31% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Inside look at how modern pop hits are made, focusing on Swedish producers like Max Martin and the assembly-line songwriting behind them; suits readers curious about the music industry or how pop is produced.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
There's a reason hit songs offer such 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. The song machine explores what the new hits may be doing to our brains and listening habits, especially as music services use streaming data to gather music into new genres invented by algorithms based on listener behavior. Revelatory and original, this book will change the way you listen to music.
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I highly recommend The Song Machine (Inside the Hit Factory) by John Seabrook. The author describes the modern reincarnation of the Brill Building that pumps out pop hits using methods that we would not call songwriting (Max Martin, Dr.…
on “Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”” ↗some recommendations on mixed topics from my recent non-fiction reads, I enjoyed all of them for different reasons (the song machine book even got me to listen to music I would never have thought I'd enjoy, but can't argue Max Martin knows how to write a catchy song!) When breath becomes air http://smile.amazon.com/When-Breath-Becomes-Paul-Kalanithi/d...…
on “Ask HN: Book Recommendations?” ↗…and how Ycombinator works behind the scenes. 3. Economics in One Lesson: by Henry Hazlitt - Explains classical economics in a way where I now can understand what politicians are talking about. 4. The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook - How pop music is made. It's surprising how assembly-line it actually is, and how many people work behind the scenes. Google "topline writer," for one. 5. Hatching…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗For those interested in this topic, I highly recommend "The Song Machine", by John Seabrook. Music is no longer written by single songwriter-singer, it's manufactured on an assembly line to optimize for 'hits'. Hits are to record labels as unicorns are to VCs :) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/books/review/the-song-mac...
on “Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive?” ↗This is an excerpt from Seabrook's book, which is pretty good, I've read it. https://www.amazon.com/Song-Machine-Inside-Hit-Factory/dp/03...
on “Hit songwriters ask pop stars to stop taking credit for songs they didn't write” ↗"The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory" by John Seabrook covers the Max Martin phenenomenon and more. I greatly enjoyed it, and if you enjoyed Rick talking about Max Martin then I reckon you'll like it too. (I'm also…
on “Why is Tiny Dancer such a great song? [video]” ↗A great book about the prodigiousness of Max Martin and other Swedish producers: "The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory". Lots of industry tales about artist who did and didn't take the advice of their producers. Kelly Clarkson, for example, stopped taking Max Martin's advice after her breakout…
on “A pitch deck that is music to the ears” ↗Thank you for this! If anyone is interested in the evolution of pop music over time (especially the last 20 years) and how hits are made, read "The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory"
on “Every top 5 song from 1958 to 2016” ↗…corporations paid the record label to include in the song (https://www.wired.com/2008/09/products-placed/). That's obviously not always the case, but it's often not too far off. I'd recommend reading "The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory" for some ugly details It doesn't mean that that kind of music isn't any good, but it's often entirely commercial from the very start which makes it hard for artists who had little…
on “Tom Waits vs. Frito-Lay, Inc (2003)” ↗The author probably took those quotes from an upcoming book by the same author as that New Yorker piece[0]. The book's linked in this (Atlantic) article. 0: http://www.amazon.com/The-Song-Machine-Inside-Factory/dp/039...
on “Hit Charade” ↗"Creativity cannot be scaled." Actually, in the book The Song Machine, they pretty clearly show otherwise, with teams of topliners, beat makers, etc. churning out hits in a machine-like format: http://www.amazon.com/Song-Machine-Inside-Hit-Factory/dp/039...
on “The tech world is wrong about marketing” ↗> make you wonder how many successful writers/producers of pop music come from Sweden. A metric fuckton: https://tobyskinner.net/2017/06/11/the-great-swedish-pop-mac... The book "The Song Machine" also talks about it.
on “Pop Songs Written by Native Speakers of Swedish” ↗According to "The Song Machine" [0], track-and-hook has largely replaced singer/songwriter for top hits. The book details how Dr. Luke (a very talented guitar player) himself works with a ProTools tech to lay down beats, chord progressions,…
on “Hit songwriters ask pop stars to stop taking credit for songs they didn't write” ↗