“One cannot live outside the machine for more perhaps than half an hour.” Virginia Woolf’s resonant words are the epigraph to this engrossing book examining modern-day musical developments, focusing on the rise of “machine-made music” manufactured by “hitmakers”. The best parts of this entertaining, though uneven, book brilliantly lay bare the nuts and bolts of the song-making process.

New Yorker staff writer Seabrook’s musical adventures encompass the US, UK, Sweden and Korea, and range from Kraftwerk to Rihanna, as he elucidates the inner workings of the industry and considers the relationship between talent and technology.

Most interesting is the interplay between music, machines and the mind: what makes a song “hit the ear right”; how people “become emotionally engaged”. Seabrook subtly explores not only the insides of a song, but how a song gets inside us.

The Song Machine is published by Jonathan Cape (£16.99). Click here to buy it for £12.99