song machine : inside the hit factory

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. Author tells the story of the massive cultural upheaval that produced these new, super-strength hits, 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. He visits specialized teams composing songs in digital labs with new "track-and-hook" techniques, all over the world. Attention is given also to 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.
Bespreking verschenen in de Volkskrant, 9-4-2016; NRC Handelsblad, 3-6-2016