Hakan Steen on this year’s Polar Prize winners – Aftonbladet

You can find all sorts of Max Martin’s music but about the Polar Prize will reward both success and innovation, he is of course a spot receiver.

Fun also prize goes to someone who is still in the midst of his work.

in terms of the number of US chart-toppers – 21! – He is third in the world ever after John Lennon and Paul McCartney .

He had 54 (! Again) tracks on the US singles list’s top ten . Where he beat both Madonna Elvis and the Beatles on his fingers.

the hits Martin “Max Martin” Sandberg has written and produced for artists such as Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears , Celine Dion , Pink , Katy Perry and Taylor Swift – with several others – are all set the tone for how modern pop music and let the past 20 years. In the words of the jury’s verdict: “Right now, at this moment, is there anyone in the world who sing in a hit song written and produced by Max Martin.”

The way to write and produce music that Denniz pop formed school with the Cheiron studios in Stockholm in the early 90′s and Max Martin has developed and refined further since then, is now the dominant in modern pop music. Teams of specialists in different kinds popskrivande come together to maximum effect every part of a song.

The New Yorker journalist John Seabrook’s readable book “The song machine: inside the hit factory” from last year describes the process that has just almost mechanical. It will happen something new every seven seconds to keep the audience engaged. Max Martin talks about “melodic math”, the amount of syllables in a line of text to go with the music. The words sound as good as possible in the song is much more important than the words that are sung.

It is possible to object to this way of looking at music creation, it only involves fabricating hits. It is possible to think that there should not be enough to be a super successful professional craftsmen to get the Polar Prize, but that it should go to artists and songwriters who changed the music by taking risks and have an idiosyncratic artistic vision.

As critics can I object to quite large parts of Max Martin’s production. It rarely affects me deeply and I seek a rule any more in music than exemplary completed “melodic math.”

But you can not argue that Britney Spears’ “… One more time” or Taylor Swift’s “Shake it off” is in every way the clock clean hits. And anyone who reads “The song machine” do not doubt that this is a songwriter and producer with just as much passion for what he does as any of the previous winners.

When the Polar Prize discussed it usually also shop a lot of turn. Why did Springsteen price before the Dylan ? And how is it that Bowie never got it? I suspect that there are a variety of circumstances surrounding who gets the price and when we do not know.

In the case of Max Martin, whose electronic based pop lends significant influences from soul, r’n’b and hip hop would it be possible to discuss why he must go before such as Kraftwerk or Nile Rodgers in the queue. Still, it is refreshing, especially when it involves so pronounced here right now-pop, to give the prize to someone who does not have a career behind him, but still in the midst of it. There are many indications that it may continue to be number one hits from his 44-year-old for a good while.

Max Martin is undoubtedly a worthy Polar Prize winner.