The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

by John Seabrook

DURING THE YEARS he worked as a program director at Top 40 stations around the country, Guy Zapoleon observed that popular music fads seem to move in a three-part cycle. Over time, he formulated a set of laws that, he believes, drives the pop cycle. It starts in the middle, with “pure pop.” This is the natural sweet spot for program directors, because it is the genre of music that draws in the largest number of listeners, boosting ratings. But pure pop eras inevitably give way to what Zapoleon calls “the doldrums,” when Top 40 becomes bland and boring, and ratings decline. In response, program directors row away from pure pop, toward the more perilous waters Zapoleon calls “the extremes,” in order to restore excitement to their stations. The extremes—alt-rock and hip-hop—attract younger listeners, always a desirable demographic for the advertisers (who, in a business sense, are a commercial station’s real constituency), but repel older ones, and so program directors begin rowing back toward the pure-pop mainstream, and the cycle starts again.