The song machine

by Dion Graham, John Seabrook

2015 338 pages eng ★ 3.2 (4 ratings)

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 …