Max Martin
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Martin "Max Martin" Sandberg (born February 26, 1971) is a 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 mega boyband Backstreet Boys, pop princess Britney Spears and Swedish starlet Robyn, among many others, in the late 1990s to mid 2000s. His trademark is a bouncing, piano/synth-heavy pop sound that's taking influence from Europop and Italian house and mixing them in 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 had managed to reinvent himself with a fresh rock sound.
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[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 1000 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 Studios, 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 at Cheiron
In 1992 Martin was hired by Cheiron Studios as a producer and spent some time learning the basics, before the first production collaboration between Pop and Martin with the Rednex track "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 (which still was a far cry from the 21 million copies of the band's previous album, Happy Nation/The Sign). When Martin eventually left his band It's Alive in late 1995, he was replaced by Anders Jansson.
In 1996 Cheiron Studios was hired to work on Backstreet Boys's debut album Backstreet Boys. Martin was part of the production of "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)", 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)" (interesting to note, the latter sounds remarkably like classic It's Alive). 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 Studios worked on albums by 5ive, *NSYNC, Bryan Adams and Jessica Folcker. Jessica Folcker was engaged as a backing singer for Ace of Base and Dr. Alban when she started working with Martin, 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 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 started to team up with Jay Orpin in late 1998 to start production of Backstreet Boys' next album Millennium.
[edit] Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears
1999 was a very big year for Martin. First off, he wrote, co-wrote and co-produced 7 songs out of 12 on the album Millennium by Backstreet Boys and he gave its unique, surreal sound to it.[citation needed] "I Want It That Way", written and co-produced by Martin, became the Backstreet Boys's biggest single to date and it is still popular and timeless today ("I Want It That Way" was voted #10 in the MTV/Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Pop Songs."). 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 bands next album Black & Blue), and was the No.1 best selling album in the world in 1999.
The same year, Martin also wrote the Britney Spears' 1998 international hit "...Baby One More Time" for her debut album with the same name (the hit single was originally offered to the group TLC to record, which they passed on because they were 'taking time off'). Both albums Millennium and ...Baby One More Time have sold around 13 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 to be 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 Backstreet Boys by Max Martin when Miskovsky determined it didn’t fit her style. The song became the first single off the new album Black & Blue by Backstreet Boys. 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, and is the first ever to receive the award three years in a row.
[edit] Producer role at Cheiron
The producers at Cheiron had almost the opposite of the producer role of the late '60s, when an artist would write the songs and then hire a producer to help shape the sound. At Cheiron 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. For example, on Britney Spears second album Oops!... I Did It Again, Cheirons 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 work more like a band that alternates singers, and he explains his working method as:
| 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.
[edit] Present - Kelly Clarkson goes to Sweden
In 2004 Kelly Clarkson, the former American Idol winner, went 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-ten of the Billboard Hot 100 while the single "Since U Been Gone" was still there.
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 contemporary, alternative pop album with a little R&B. The result album was 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, and newcomer Megan McCauley's album on Wind-up records, again working together with Lukasz Gottwald.
Currently rumours are that Martin and Dr. Luke are currently or soon-to-be writing songs for Britney Spears' new album scheduled to be released in 2007. Martin has previously worked with Spears on her first three studio albums which are high in pop music, however in 2003's In The Zone album by Spears, (considered to be a very sexual album with less pop music and more in dance, R&B and Hip-hop.) Martin was no where to be seen in any of the song writing. This rumour, if confirmed will mean Spears and Martin will work together for the first time in nearly 6 years for a studio album. This move for Spears to write with Martin is probably due to the fact that Spears doesn't sing bubblegum pop any more (referring to when Martin wrote for Spears' first two albums) and recent song writings of Martin have been more Pop/Rock (Kelly Clarkson & P!nk) and very successful on the charts.
[edit] Songwriting
[edit] Written songs (Cheiron)
[edit] Written songs (Maratone)
[edit] Productions and co-productions
[edit] Productions and co-productions (Cheiron)
[edit] Productions and co-productions (Maratone)
[edit] Charts
[edit] Top-selling singles
- Britney Spears - ...Baby One More Time - "...Baby One More Time" (written by Max Martin), WW Sales: 10 million
- Backstreet Boys - Backstreet Boys - "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" (written by Max Martin, Herbie Crichlow), WW Sales: 2.4 million
- Backstreet Boys - Backstreet's Back - "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" (written by Max Martin, Denniz Pop), WW Sales: 2.1 million
[edit] Awards
[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] Razzie Awards
Worst Original Song for the movie Crossroads (2002) Shared with: Rami Yacoub, Dido (Result: Won) For the song "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman".
Worst Original Song for the movie Crossroads (2002) Shared with: Rami Yacoub (Result: Nominated) For the song "Overprotected"
