Song Machine. Inside the Hit Factory

It seems that at the dawn of the 21st century, popular music has reached a completely new phase of development. To write a song, it is no longer necessary to play the guitar virtuously and possess poetic talent, and to... sing it, a powerful voice is not needed - welcome to the era of auto-tune! But one thing is a simple song, and quite another is a hit that can instantly make the performer famous and turn its author into a millionaire. By the way, who creates all these masterpieces?
In his book "Song Machine. Inside the Hit Factory," John Seabrook, an American cultural critic and journalist, explores the phenomenon of popular music, its influence on modern society, as well as thoroughly examining the "anatomy" of a hit and comes to an interesting conclusion - it turns out that in such a creative endeavor as writing a song, originality is not very important. Everything obeys strict logic, the "mathematics of melody," and behind it stands a whole team of professionals - producers, top-liners, beatmakers, and lyricists. By studying the history of the emergence of hits, Seabrook leads us to another, equally astonishing thought: this has almost always been the case.