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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2015 23:23:30 GMT
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Post by dr on Oct 28, 2015 11:41:32 GMT
i could never see Max doing somethings as *intricate* as Pink and Blue I see what you mean, that tune is definitely a lot more busy, melodically and production-wise, than the stuff Max Martin usually writes. However, I was thinking specifically about "Attachment" when I made that remark about the connection between Max and Hannah. Yes, the production is a lot more weird/dissonant than your average Max Martin track, and Hannah isn't nearly as slick/polished a performer as Max's usual clients, but structurally and melodically the song is pure 90's chartpop gold. Think about the chorus melody, and the way it repeats. There's a rest on the first beat, then you get a descending melodic run: "[rest] though I love you ba-by." The same riff is repeated twice more, with slight variations, for the lines "[rest] it feels kind of crazy / [rest] ev-ry time you see me," then you get a different riff for the fourth phrase: "[rest] IIIIIII'm on my own." Second half of the chorus is almost identical except the riff only happens twice ("feel-ing bet-ter real-ly / I can see you clearly"). Now compare the chorus of one of Max Martin's classic jams: "I Want It That Way," which he wrote with Andreas Carlsson for the Backstreet Boys. Pretend you're in the backing group and don't get to sing the "TELL ME WHYYYY" hook that the lead singer has. Your vocal part looks something like this: a descending melodic run that starts with a rest, and repeats three times: "[rest] ain't no-thing but a heart-break / [rest] ain't no-thing but a mis-take / [rest] I never want to hear you say." Then you get the juicy last part that's not a repetition, in fact it's so important it contains the name of the song: "IIIII WAAAAANT IT THAAAAAT WAY." Just like the killer line at the end of the chorus in "Attachment" is the one that ties the lyrics and title together: "Now I've saved you as a piiiiic-tuuuure on my phone" I know we have no solid evidence that Cook writes Hannah's melodies (as I believe he does), nor do I think he had that particular Backstreet Boys song in mind when (or if) he wrote the melody for "Attachment," but we know he's studied up on his Max Martin. And Max Martin really knows how to write a killer chorus, the dude has pop down to a science. So I think the comparison I've drawn is not that unreasonable, "Attachment" may not sound like chartpop to many people's ears but there's a reason that melody sticks in your head and WON'T EVER LEAVE. Forgive me if you think I'm "reading too deep into this" but as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about how to write songs I think I can safely say that Cook (or Hannah) is definitely familiar with the work of Max Martin. In any case I'm just glad that my 100th post on this forum adequately reflects my fanatical love of music and songcraft. Hopefully my future posts will be able to do so without being so long-winded about it (heheh)
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Post by fantasma on Oct 28, 2015 13:07:07 GMT
Pc Music probably wouldn't exist without Max Martin. BOW
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Post by champiness on Oct 28, 2015 15:35:08 GMT
It's kinda hard to discern in an era when he's basically become synonymous with "pop music default setting" (especially since most of our personal experiences with a time before that probably don't extend much further than seeing the "Oops!... I Did It Again" video on Disney Channel, at best) but when Max Martin first came on the scene it was an outright paradigm shift. Of course I don't have sufficient memory of a pre-Max Martin world to effectively detail the specifics, but if you're interested you should really check out these Popular pieces on the Britney #1's that bookended his rise (they're a real masterclass in what it feels like to watch pop music shift before your eyes, both - mostly - positive and also negative): freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2014/09/britney-spears-baby-one-more-time/freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2015/03/britney-spears-oops-i-did-it-again/Honestly we can only pray that the PC crew manage to achieve a fraction of what he accomplished back at the turn of the millennium (and in those pieces you definitely can see a reassuring line of causality between that moment and our current one).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2015 15:45:38 GMT
It's kinda hard to discern in an era when he's basically become synonymous with "pop music default setting" (especially since most of our personal experiences with a time before that probably don't extend much further than seeing the "Oops!... I Did It Again" video on Disney Channel, at best) but when Max Martin first came on the scene it was an outright paradigm shift. Of course I don't have sufficient memory of a pre-Max Martin world to effectively detail the specifics, but if you're interested you should really check out these Popular pieces on the Britney #1's that bookended his rise (they're a real masterclass in what it feels like to watch pop music shift before your eyes, both - mostly - positive and also negative): freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2014/09/britney-spears-baby-one-more-time/freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2015/03/britney-spears-oops-i-did-it-again/Honestly we can only pray that the PC crew manage to achieve a fraction of what he accomplished back at the turn of the millennium (and in those pieces you definitely can see a reassuring line of causality between that moment and our current one). pre-martin "pop" would be stuff like this: there is indeed an enormous shift on the pop music after him. we can't deny that.
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Post by champiness on Oct 28, 2015 16:09:10 GMT
I mean, you might be exaggerating the shift he constituted a tad - you have to at the very least fit Aqua into the gap between those records and "...Baby" if you want a picture of pop sufficient to interpreting what PCM are doing with it (and I'm aware of the perverseness of using Aqua as my lone example here) - but yes, he certainly didn't end up where he is now through lack of inventiveness. It's sometimes hard to tell when at any given moment the "status quo" of the charts seems so inviolable and suffocating, but pop as a format is addicted to novelty (in the "new, unprecedented things" sense, as well as the more pejorative one admittedly). It sustains itself on the kind of cocky upstarts willing to defy it - I think the recent sense among music fans that underground/indie/[whatever your term for outsider stuff] is being more aggressively "co-opted" by the mainstream is mostly a matter of "tastemaker" sites like Pitchfork making those upstarts more visible before they hit it big. One of the things I love about PC Music is the way they've been readying to get co-opted from the start so they can land on their feet and take off running when it happens (which seems to be imminent).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2015 16:19:37 GMT
we also have a lot of producers that worked the pop music at the same time as Martin, but didn't immediately jumped on the bandwagon. we can take Xenomania and Danski and Delmundo, for example. the way they were doing pop was very different the way Martin was doing. we can't ignore the similarities, of course, but that's because everything has been a rehash of what came before, music-wise.
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Post by champiness on Oct 28, 2015 16:26:42 GMT
we also have a lot of producers that worked the pop music at the same time as Martin, but didn't immediately jumped on the bandwagon. we can take Xenomania and Danski and Delmundo, for example. the way they were doing pop was very different the way Martin was doing. we can't ignore the similarities, of course, but that's because everything has been a rehash of what came before, music-wise. Any history of recent pop that doesn't include Cher's " Believe" as a foundational landmark is an incomplete one. (That said none of them have reached anywhere near Martin's subsequent level of ubiquity - though Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" was produced by some satellite members of the Xenomania team last year.)
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Post by conor on Oct 28, 2015 16:54:21 GMT
Haha kinda off topic but I just watched a documentary on people obsessed with Tiffany a few hours ago! The title is the title of that song if anyone is interested
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Post by digitalrain on Oct 28, 2015 17:50:51 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2015 18:00:35 GMT
we also have a lot of producers that worked the pop music at the same time as Martin, but didn't immediately jumped on the bandwagon. we can take Xenomania and Danski and Delmundo, for example. the way they were doing pop was very different the way Martin was doing. we can't ignore the similarities, of course, but that's because everything has been a rehash of what came before, music-wise. Any history of recent pop that doesn't include Cher's " Believe" as a foundational landmark is an incomplete one. (That said none of them have reached anywhere near Martin's subsequent level of ubiquity - though Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" was produced by some satellite members of the Xenomania team last year.) they produced my favorite Girls Aloud song ever (and that is a pretty bold statement since i love everything made by GA)
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Post by -- on Oct 29, 2015 22:11:24 GMT
Honestly i think pop music would be completely different if Max Martin didn't make music. Maybe The Neptunes would be more popular. Maybe the rock edm would have been the mainstream back then. Its weird. Maybe Darkchild would've been the producer. Or maybe someone else would be doing what Max Martin did. Just a different name. Its really weird to think about. Or maybe Timbaland would've been the crossover producer earlier in his career. RedOne though. He made a huge impact in pop. Made Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga. And then produced like all the pop songs between 2009 - 2013. Maybe he would have impacted earlier.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2015 22:30:16 GMT
maybe what we call "urban" now would be what we'd call "pop" in this alternate-non-max-martin reality
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