The New Yorker magazine has done as much as any other mainstream publication to explain in simple terms how the modern pop music industry works. That's kind of amazing, considering that the New Yorker has a reputation for hard-hitting, serious, rigorous journalism, in large part because of the publication's famously detail-oriented fact-checking process.
But like NPR, the magazine wields its considerable powers in the service of describing both events with important worldwide ramifications and -- for lack of a better term -- stories of the How We Live Today variety.
Three articles, in particular, jump out to me, profiling Ester Dean, Afrojack, and Dr. Luke. Aside from telling us about those music makers' personalities, each article describes the music production process as each of them works. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they're remarkably similar.
In Dean's case, here's how John Seabrook described producers Stargate tweaking a song while she was in the booth, conjuring hooks for other artists to sing:
Afrojack figured prominently in Josh Eels's evaluation of the wider Electronic Dance Music movement. Here's how he worked on a song while traveling in a private jet:
In the profile of producer Dr. Luke, Seabrook took great pains to explain that Dr. Luke has instituted a clear division of labor: Luke has nothing to do with lyrics, because that part's "not fun" for him. Instead, people like Bonnie McKee come up with the words to go with his instrumentation.
(Image cc-licensed: "Bonnie McKee 11/09/2013 #4" by Justin Higuchi)