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A review by glowbird
The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook
2.0
This left a bad taste in my mouth. The book feels poorly organized and haphazardly researched. Fawning interviews with producers are interwoven with oddly mean, tossed off sketches of assorted pop stars. The conversations about Swedish producers and their influence on pop music was interesting, but the continuous bios felt overlong. Aspects of pop stars' lives are discussed in great detail, but these stories often have no impact on song selection or their work with producers and seem to be researched exclusively through "official" bio books and old magazine articles. Perhaps it's impossible to get access to these stars while producers are just begging to be interviewed. If that's the case then the book would have benefited from less attention to the face of the song. It had no effect other than to make most of the artists look idiotic, naive, and/or broken.
Some incredibly influential stars are not discussed at all. I found it particularly odd that Taylor Swift was not significantly mentioned, given that many of her most recent hits were written by producers discussed in the book.
The chapters on K-pop and Spotify were interesting but felt out of place in the jumbled narrative. Ultimately I couldn't tell you what this book is about. Song writing? Making money? Pop stars from the early 2000s? Negging on Britney and Kesha for kicks?
Some incredibly influential stars are not discussed at all. I found it particularly odd that Taylor Swift was not significantly mentioned, given that many of her most recent hits were written by producers discussed in the book.
The chapters on K-pop and Spotify were interesting but felt out of place in the jumbled narrative. Ultimately I couldn't tell you what this book is about. Song writing? Making money? Pop stars from the early 2000s? Negging on Britney and Kesha for kicks?