ABSTRACT
There is the notion of the hook in rock and roll music: a memorable snippet of a song that grabs the attention and demands to be heard over and over. The hook is the l’objet sonore of rock-a molecule of sound with unique timbral and psychoacoustic properties that make it easy for the listener to commit to memory: a special sound with its own personality that could stand alone outside of the context of a song. Furthermore, the hook is the product of the uniquely crafted sound of a rock group-an instrumental blend of guitars, amplifiers, effects pedals, and other elements that combine to give a group its sonic identity. Rock music is very much about crafting and shaping sounds, so it was only natural that many of the early adopters of electronic music techniques would be in the recording studios producing hit records. Any rock group worth remembering has a distinctive sound and the best musicians, producers, and engineers are in the business of perfecting that sound.
