The aim in reviewing these songs is to extract the remarkable and identify the musical elements that give the songs their unique musical character. Neither the lyrics nor the performance of the vocalist are examined even though these may in some cases be the things that carry the song.

Being able to listen to a song and hear how it works in terms of form, chord progressions, orchestration, melody, and harmony, is useful for when you come to write your own songs. In no way should you think that this is stealing other people's ideas. What you're doing is grasping songwriting techniques by looking at what has worked for other people time and time again. A good record producer could take any song and make it into something that sounds good. They do this by using their knowledge of what will work musically, and drawing on years of experience in sorting the good ideas from the bad. What you can do by understanding how famous songs are put together, is fast-track your way to having a framework into which you can pour your own ideas and creativity.

Of course one person's 'catchy hook' is another person's 'banal dross'. For this reason, the songs are looked at in as dispassionately a way as possible. The idea is to ferret out what makes a song work so whether or not you like the actual content, you can try the technique with some of your own material and see if it works for you.