I admit, I had never heard of Brill Building Music until I ran across this passage.
Apparently, Brill Building Music was music that came out of the Brill Building in New York City. There teams of professional songwriters collaborated to write many of the famous music of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.
Built in 1931, you can still visit the Brill Building today at:
1619 Broadway, New York City, NY (on the corner of 49th street)
The point is that pop music is made the same way today as it was back then.
Although today, both songwriters and artists are certainly more quiet about it…
Like the Brill Building songs of my youth, the hits on the radio are once again “manufactured” by songwriting pros. The hit makers aren’t on the same team, but they collaborate and work independently for the same few A-list artists. Collectively, they constitute a virtual Brill Building, the place where record men go when they have to have a hit. The song machine.
-John Seabrook, The Song Machine
