Max Martin
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| Max Martin | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Karl Martin Sandberg |
| Born | February 26, 1971 |
| Origin | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Genre(s) | Pop dance pop rock |
| Occupation(s) | songwriter producer singer |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Website | http://www.maratone.se |
Martin Karl "Max Martin" Sandberg (born February 26, 1971) is a Grammy-nominated,[1] Swedish pop-dance music producer and songwriter. He was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and is best known by his artistic name Max Martin. As a producer and songwriter, he crafted a string of worldwide hits for pop artists like the clean-cut boy bands The Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, Britney Spears, Swedish starlet Robyn and the Swedish eurodance star E-Type among many others, in the mid/late '90s to mid 2000s.
His trademark is a bouncing, piano/synth-heavy pop sound that mixes music styles such as Europop and Italo house with classic American Bandstand pop arrangements. However, with Kelly Clarkson's hits "Since U Been Gone" and "Behind These Hazel Eyes", which propelled Max back into the spotlight in 2004, he reinvented himself with a new pop rock sound.
Contents |
[edit] Musical career and personal life
[edit] Early life and career
Martin Sandberg grew up in Stenhamra, Ekerö Municipality, a suburb of Stockholm. As a teenager he sang in several bands before joining a glam-style metal band called It's Alive in 1985 as their singer and frontman. It's Alive were formed by ex LAZY members Per Aldeheim and Kim Björkgren on guitars, and John Rosth who had been a member of Lineout. Martin eventually dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music with his band under the nickname "Martin White". In 1988 they participated in the national rock championships and also played as the in-house band at a disco in Cyprus. The band got a breakthrough in 1991, as Dave Constable of Megarock Records offered them to make a demo-record. The later debut album was originally pressed in 1,000 copies and later on given away as a free cover tape in the UK by the Metal Forces magazine.
The decision to focus on a music career paid off as they landed a record deal on producer Denniz PoP's label Cheiron Records, a BMG affiliate. After recording their second album Earthquake Visions, they released three singles in conjunction with the record (including "I'm Your Man" which featured the bonus cut of a cover of KISS' "Parasite") and toured through Europe in 1994 supporting Kingdom Come. Earthquake Visions eventually sold a disappointing 30,000 copies, despite being released in as many as 30 countries. More importantly though, Martin also began collaborating on songs with PoP. Recognising a talent for writing pop songs in the young rocker, PoP renamed his new charge Max Martin and eventually became Martin’s mentor.
[edit] Working with Cheiron and Denniz Pop
In 1992 Martin was hired by Cheiron Studios and spent some time learning the basics, before the first production collaboration between Pop and Martin: the Rednex song "Wish You Were Here" in 1995. They both worked on Ace of Base's second album The Bridge shortly thereafter, as well as on albums by 3T, Army of Lovers and Leila K. To date, The Bridge has sold more than six million copies worldwide, including two million in the United States. When Martin eventually left his band It's Alive in late 1995, he was replaced by Anders Jansson.
In 1996, the Cheiron Studios was hired by Zomba to work on Backstreet Boys' self-titled debut album Backstreet Boys. Zomba became the main working partner since the success in 1995. Martin took part in the production of "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)", co-written with Herbie Crichlow, a single which quickly went platinum and climbed to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the singles "As Long As You Love Me" and "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)". The album was not released in the U.S. until 1997, but was released overseas and caught on all across Europe, eventually selling around 8 million copies worldwide. This led to the Backstreet Boys being relaunched in their home country later on, this time more successfully. Later that year, Martin also co-produced Robyn’s hit "Show Me Love" which ended up on the Billboard top 10.
In 1998, Cheiron Productions worked on albums by 5ive, *NSYNC, Bryan Adams and Jessica Folcker. Jessica Folcker had first been hired as a backing singer for tracks with Ace of Base and Dr. Alban, and her debut album Jessica became an instant hit with singles like "Tell Me What You Like" and "How Will I Know Who You Are" which both sold platinum. After Denniz Pop died of cancer that same summer, Martin took over as director of Cheiron Studios. He soon started working with writer/producer Rami Yacoub, who has been his partner since. A few months after he started working with Rami, he also teamed up with Jay Orpin (main composer of such artists as Hawthorne Heights) in late 1998 to start production of the Backstreet Boys' next album Millennium.
[edit] Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears
1999 was a big year for Martin. He wrote, co-wrote and co-produced 7 out of the 12 songs on the album Millennium by the Backstreet Boys. "I Want It That Way", written and co-produced by Martin, became the group's biggest single to date and it is still popular today ("I Want It That Way" was voted #10 in the MTV/Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Pop Songs."[2]). Millennium sold over 1.1 million units in its first week in the United States, setting a record for most albums sold in its debut week (that record was later beaten by the band's next album Black & Blue), and was the #1 best-selling album in the world in 1999.
The same year, Martin also wrote Britney Spears' 1998 international hit "...Baby One More Time" for her debut album with the same name, (this hit single was originally offered to the group TLC to record, which they passed on because they were 'taking time off'[3]). Both albums (Millennium and ...Baby One More Time) have sold around 14 million copies each in the U.S. to this date, certifying Diamond Status. Also, within a year of its release, ...Baby One More Time had become the best-selling LP by a teenager in history and the debut hit single remains Spears' biggest U.S. (and international) hit to date. Martin was the first non-American citizen ever to win ASCAP's prestigious award "Songwriter of the Year" in 1999.
When working on her own solo album, to be released in 2001 on Stockholm Records, Lisa Miskovsky wrote the text for Backstreet Boys new hit single "Shape of My Heart" with Max Martin and Rami. The song, originally written for Miskovsky’s own album, was passed along to the Backstreet Boys by Max Martin when Miskovsky determined it did not fit her style. The song became the first single off the group's new album Black & Blue. In the first week of release, "Shape of My Heart" immediately jumped into the Top Five in Sweden (#1), Norway (#1), Canada (#1), Germany (#2), Switzerland (#4), Austria (#5) and Holland (#5). Black & Blue, containing several songs produced and written by Martin, sold 1.6 million units in its first week in America. Martin again received ASCAP's award "Songwriter of the Year" both in 2000 and 2001,[4] and is the first songwriter ever to receive the award three years in a row.
[edit] Producer role for Cheiron Productions
The traditional division of work in the record industry typically has the artist writing the songs and then hiring a producer to help shape the sound. At Cheiron it was the other way around; the producers wrote the songs, played the instruments, engineered and mixed the recordings and the artist was only brought in near the end of the process to do the vocals. For example, on Britney Spears second album Oops!… I Did It Again, Cheiron had already written seven songs and had proceeded to record the layers of music before Britney even arrived at the studios. It took her only one week to do the vocals. Martin and his team worked more like a band that alternated singers. Martin explained his working method:
| “ | I want to be part of every note, every single moment going on in the studio. I want nothing forgotten, I want nothing missed. I'm a perfectionist. The producer should decide what kind of music is being made, what it's going to sound like--all of it, the why, when and how. - LA Times, 6/05/00 | ” |
[edit] Startup of Maratone
Despite the success, Cheiron Studios was closed down in 2000. The reason behind the decision to close it down was, according to the press release on their homepage, that the heart and soul of the studio had been lost with the death of Denniz Pop. Another reason for closing the studio down was for the people at Cheiron Studios to be able to do more experimental music work without the weight of the now infamous name Cheiron upon their shoulders.
Max Martin and Tom Talomaa started a new production company together named Maratone in January 2001. Also, David Kreuger and Per Magnusson started A Side Productions and Kristian Lundin started the production-company The Location and the publishing-company Location Songs together with Jake Schulze and Andreas Carlsson (both also members of Cheiron's production team) at the same location as Cheiron Studios. The first songs to be written and produced at Maratone were four tracks for Britney Spears' third album Britney. The Maratone production crew now consists of producers/songwriters Max Martin, Rami, Alexandra and Arnthor. Following the work with Celine Dion on the album One Heart in 2003, few new hits appeared from Maratone until 2005.
[edit] Kelly Clarkson goes to Sweden
In 2004 former American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson travelled to Sweden to collaborate with Max Martin and Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald on songs for her album Breakaway. They decided to make songs that were rockier than anticipated by the fans, as can be heard on the hit singles "Since U Been Gone" and "Behind These Hazel Eyes". "Since U Been Gone" became a huge hit and remains the biggest hit of Clarkson's career, and one of the biggest hits of 2005. The next single, "Behind These Hazel Eyes", actually reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 while the single "Since U Been Gone" was still on the chart.
In 2005, Martin collaborated on 4 of the 12 songs on Backstreet Boys' comeback album Never Gone, including "Climbing The Walls", "Just Want You To Know", "Siberia" and the melancholy love song "I Still...", a trademark song for the Backstreet Boys. Martin wanted the album to be more of a contemporary, alternative pop album with a little R&B. The resulting album had a more organic music style with more live instruments, and a departure from The Backstreet Boys' earlier work. The same year, Martin also co-produced Swedish singer Darin Zanyar's first album, and wrote and produced songs for P!nk's fourth album I'm Not Dead, co-produced Australian singer and former Neighbours star Stephanie McIntosh's first single "Mistake", and newcomer Megan McCauley's album on Wind-up Records, again working together with Lukasz Gottwald.
[edit] Collaboration with Britney Spears
Martin has worked with Spears on her first three studio albums, which were made in the style of teen-oriented pop. However, when Spears recorded her 2003 album In the Zone (considered to be a very sexual album with less teen-pop and more dance, R&B and urban pop), she decided to move away from the teen-pop genre she was so closely associated with. The duo ended up parting ways, and Martin had no input on that album nor on her 2007 album, Blackout.
[edit] Songwriting and Producing
[edit] Charts
[edit] Top-selling singles
These are the top selling singles written by Max Martin according to MediaTraffic.de [1]:
- "...Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears from the album ...Baby One More Time (written by Max Martin), 8.654.000 points
- "Shape of My Heart" by Backstreet Boys from the album Black & Blue (written by Max Martin, Rami Yacoub,Lisa Miskovsky), 7.151.000 points [2][3]
- "Oops!... I Did It Again" by Britney Spears from the album Oops!… I Did It Again (written by Max Martin, Rami Yacoub), 5.995.000 points
- "I Want It That Way" by Backstreet Boys from the album Millennium (written by Max Martin and Andreas Carlsson), 5.880.000 points
- "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi from the album Crush (written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Max Martin), 5.519.000 points
- "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" by Backstreet Boys from the album Millennium (written by Max Martin and Herbert Crichlow), 4.061.000 points [4] .
[edit] Awards
- Swedish Grammis Award in 1998
- ASCAP's Songwriter of the Year in 1999
- ASCAP's Songwriter of the Year in 2000
- ASCAP's Songwriter of the Year in 2001
[edit] See also
- Max Martin's Songwriting and Production Credits
- Britney Spears
- Maratone Studio
- Backstreet Boys
- I Want It That Way
- Andreas Carlsson
[edit] References
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007) |
- ^ CNN.com - Grammy 2000. CNN.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-20.
- ^ MTV, Rolling Stone list top 100 pop songs. Ljworld.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-20.
- ^ Rock&Pop: Story of the song '...Baby One More Time'. Findarticles.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
- ^ Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen (23 May 2001). Songwriters Behind 'NSYNC, Backstreet Boys Hits Win Big At ASCAP Pop Awards. MTV. Retrieved on 2007-10-15.
