The Song Machine

August 10, 2015
Traveling from Sweden and South Korea to Los Angeles and New York for interviews with a wide array of songwriters, producers, and artists, New Yorker writer Seabrook tunefully delivers a soulful refrain on the multilayered process of building hit songs today. He profiles Soo-Man Lee, founder of SM Entertainment and architect of K-pop, who created a manual detailing steps necessary to establish a winning artist: which chord progressions to use in songs, which camera angles for videos, and when to import foreign producers or choreographers. Denniz Pop’s vision of making the hits involves using a factory of Swedish songwriters who would create hits for British and American acts, combining the beat-driven music people danced to in clubs with the pop music people listened to on the radio. Seabrook also profiles Lou Pearlman, who engineered the Backstreet Boys and mismanaged their careers, and Britney Spears and Rhianna, examining the formulas for their pop successes. Seabrook almost giddily explores the ways that hit songs hook the listener when the “rhythm, sound, melody, and harmony converge to create a single ecstatic moment, felt more in the body than in the head.”

Starred review from September 15, 2015

New Yorker staff writer Seabrook (Nobrow) presents an engaging narrative of modern pop music, documenting the highs and lows of the industry, its artists, and how hits become hits. With a focus on the American charts, he delves into songwriting teams and the way they--rather than artists--have driven creative vision. These hitmakers include Cheiron, Stargate, and Dr. Luke, as well as Swedish songwriter and producer Max Martin, whose impact on the last two decades of pop music is indisputable (with over 20 U.S. Billboard No. 1 songs to his name). Seabrook also documents the rise of specific artists, such as Rihanna and Katy Perry, in fantastic detail. The scandals are there, too, including Lou Pearlman's troubles with the Backstreet Boys (their contract named him as manager and sixth member), the conflict between Kelly Clarkson and Clive Davis over her songwriting, and Ke$ha and Dr. Luke's falling-out (she accused him of sexual assault). It's big business as well--Seabrook notes that "ninety percent of the revenues in the record business come from ten percent of the songs." He further examines the evolving nature of singles artists as songs replace albums in importance; the still-important place of radio in hit making; and the future with streaming music. VERDICT This clever, lively, and well-researched book is essential for pop fans. [See Prepub Alert, 5/4/15; also featured in "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 9/1/15, p. 32]--Amanda Mastrull, Library Journal

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2015
Like many who drive with someone much younger in control of the audio, writer Seabrook found himself suddenly captive, and suddenly blown away, by the new top 40. Or top 10,000. He has heard a lotmuch of his choice, but much a revelation, to his delight and interest; hence, this rollicking and surprising investigation into what makes a hit a hit. It's not always the product of a few musicians exploring their feelings late at night, as one might have thought; instead, it's a highly sophisticated, manipulative, and money-motivated machine that not only envelopes you but, face it, often makes you feel good. Seabrook's focus here is on the mechanics of the hit makers (starting in Tin Pan Alley and carrying onward to such biggies as Berry Gordy, Phil Spector, etc.) who focused on production, distribution, and money making, with the artists often coming last (if not being invented; e.g., the Backstreet Boys). The record-album (and CD, in part) business may have teetered and fallen, but the hits keep coming, thanks to electronics, sampling, business savvy, and those who understand what the public craves and provide it. Eye-opening and astonishing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 1, 2015
New Yorker staff writer Seabrook (Flash of Genius: And Other True Stories of Invention, 2008, etc.) examines the seismic shifts in the music industry. There are plenty of good books that have shown how "hits are the source of hard dealings and dark deeds." If it's no surprise that the music industry can be a dirty business, the author shows just how radically the business has changed, with power shifting from the American-British axis to Sweden (and Korea and China on the horizon), with album-oriented rock eclipsed by contemporary hit pop and with streaming undermining not only the sales of CDs and downloads, but the future of the music business as we know it. Even those well-versed in the trade might be surprised to learn that a South African native named Clive Calder, through his Jive label, "is and for the foreseeable future will be the single richest man the music business ever produced." Those riches accrued from his involvement with the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, and Britney Spears but even more from his visionary focus on producers rather than performers and publishing rights rather than record sales. His story intersects with that of the notorious Lou Pearlman, now imprisoned for "a giant Ponzi scheme" but formerly involved in manufacturing those acts and more. But some of the freshest and most fascinating material concerns the way that Swedish musical masterminds whose names are little-known to American music consumers have been able to dominate over decades and genres by bridging pop hooks and dance-floor beats. Max Martin, for one, has enjoyed a string of Billboard chart-toppers extending from Spears' breakthrough and Bon Jovi's comeback through recent work with Taylor Swift. Seabrook goes deeper into the career developments of Rihanna and Katy Perry, but most of the artists hold insignificant power within the international behemoth that this industry has become and even less control over their own musical progression. A revelatory ear-opener, as the music business remains in a state of significant flux.

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