John Seabrook > Quotes

“there are only so many times you can listen to the guitar solo in Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” without going a little numb yourself,”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“The very first hit factory was T.B. Harms, a Tin Pan Alley publishing company overseen by Max Dreyfus. With staff writers like Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, T.B. Harms was the dominant publisher of popular music in the early twentieth century. Dreyfus called his writers “the boys” and installed pianos for them to compose on around the office on West Twenty-Eighth, the street that gave Tin Pan Alley its name, allegedly for the tinny-sounding pianos passersby heard from the upper-story windows of the row houses. The sheet-music sellers also employed piano players in their street-level stores, who would perform the Top 40 of the 1920s for browsing customers.”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“Lundin says, “Denniz was an arrangement genius.” He adds, “like Steve Jobs, he knew what to take out. ‘You can get rid of that, that. Keep it simple.’ ” As Denniz put it, “A great pop song should be interesting, in some way. That means that certain people will hate it immediately and certain people will love it, but only as long as it isn’t boring and meaningless. Then it’s not a pop song any longer; then it’s something else. It’s just music.”
― John Seabrook

“As was Max’s method of demo making, all the hooks in the song were worked up to their finished state, but most of the verses were unfinished, often mere vowel sounds. There was no bridge yet, because, as Lunt puts it, “Max would say, ‘If you don’t like the song by then, fuck you’—in his polite Swedish way, of course.”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“They told me exactly how it worked, the marketing of it. Our target market was always going to be young teenage girls, because boys are into sports, and they like buying jerseys and caps and so on, for baseball or football, things of that nature, whereas the girls are totally enthralled with the band. . . . They don’t have money, but they have access to a large supply of it: their aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, who would spend money on them for a concert or merchandise sooner than they would spend it on themselves.”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“One cannot live outside the machine for more perhaps than half an hour. VIRGINIA WOOLF, THE WAVES”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“on the Internet, shelf space is infinite,”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“A&R really did involve both artists and repertoire—discovering”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“You can get in a car in Maine and drive all the way to California and hear the same Top 40 songs on the same chain broadcasters,” bemoaned the report.”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“The verses build up the tension, and the choruses release it, letting the joy in. After two choruses, there’s usually a bridge, also known as “the middle eight,” which is a variation on the verse melody, followed by the final chorus and coda.”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“Kotecha says, “I always think in my head, if Max Martin was an American, he would have fizzled out a long time ago. He would have believed his own hype. But because he’s Swedish, he’s able to contain himself. He just focuses on being the best writer and producer and mentor he can be.”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“Connection, he explained, was the essence of pop music, according to his boss, Jimmy Iovine: “Jimmy always says it’s all about the connection between the artist and the fans,” he says. “This whole business, it’s just about that connection.”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

“Fenty later recalled Jay-Z saying, ‘There’s only two ways out. Out the door’ ”—if she signed the contract—“ ‘or through this window’ ” if she didn’t. Was that a threat? “It was very flattering.” She left through the door.”
― John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory