Songs from Sweden: Shaping Pop Culture in a Globalized Music Industry [1st ed.] 9789811527357, 9789811527364

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii
Introduction: The Swedish Music Miracle, from 1.0 to 2.0 (Ola Johansson)....Pages 1-24
Local Music in a Global Network: Circulation, Reputation, and Hybridity (Ola Johansson)....Pages 25-42
The Main Players (Ola Johansson)....Pages 43-98
An Analysis of Swedish Pop Music (Ola Johansson)....Pages 99-135
Concluding Thoughts (Ola Johansson)....Pages 137-144
Back Matter ....Pages 145-169

Citation preview

GEOGRAPHIES OF MEDIA

Songs from Sweden Shaping Pop Culture in a Globalized Music Industry Ola Johansson

Geographies of Media

Series Editors Torsten Wissmann Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning University of Applied Sciences Erfurt, Germany Joseph Palis Department of Geography University of the Philippines Diliman Quezon, Philippines

Media is always spatial: spaces extend from all kinds of media, from newspaper columns to Facebook profiles, from global destination branding to individually experienced environments, and from classroom methods to GIS measurement techniques. Crucially, the way information is produced in an increasingly globalised world has resulted in the bridging of space between various scalar terrains. Being and engaging with media means being linked to people and places both within and beyond traditional political borders. As a result, media shapes and facilitates the formation of new geographies and other space-constituting and place-based configurations. The Geographies of Media series serves as a forum to engage with the shape-shifting dimensions of mediascapes from an array of methodological, critical and analytical perspectives. The series welcomes proposals for monographs and edited volumes exploring the cultural and social impact of multi-modal media on the creation of space, place, and everyday life.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15003

Ola Johansson

Songs from Sweden Shaping Pop Culture in a Globalized Music Industry

Ola Johansson Department of Geography University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Johnstown, PA, USA

Geographies of Media ISBN 978-981-15-2735-7 ISBN 978-981-15-2736-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2736-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Alex Linch/shutterstock.com This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Series Editors’ Preface: Thank You for the Music

The Geography of Media series is constantly growing. You are holding in your hands our fourth title, again in the easy to access Pivot format. Its predecessors investigate cyberplaces, platform urbanism, and pirate radio stations. Here comes Ola Johansson’s inside look into the Swedish music industry: While Swedish pop may be thought to emanate from Sweden, pop music audiences may already have heard a bit of Sweden in the multiscalar dimension of composing and creating a pop song for a universal audience. A Scandinavian country of 10 million, Sweden’s army of writerproducers create songs for numerous global pop artists, but we also need to investigate the political economy of how a pop song relies on globalized networks. Music production no doubt has changed since the time when ABBA used to top the charts, and Kimberly Peters’ Radio Caroline stole listeners from the BBC by broadcasting from a ship just outside of British jurisdiction (see Peters 2018). The romanticism of a single songwriter who picks a few chords on the guitar, hums along while scribbling down a few lines of lyrics has been replaced by locally-based producers and studios who operate globally. Multiple people add sound bites and samples to a song that is constantly reshaped, optimized, and forwarded over group networks and shared cloud storage. As Johansson tells us, hybridity becomes part of the creative process. Hybridity unlocks a wellspring of creative expressions that acknowledge the local and specific along with the imagined global and universal. v

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Listening habits and our access to music have also changed. Do you remember the time when you had to buy an actual, physical music album, just because you wanted to listen to that one particular song? When you put on the album for the first time, you were suddenly confronted with all the other songs you didn’t particularly like or where interested in. After a while those other songs actually started to sound better, and sometimes even ended up being more valuable to you than the one responsible for the buying decision. Finally, you familiarized yourself with the previously unaccustomed harmonies to expand your musical taste. With the rise of digitally distributed music and personalized listening recommendations, those awkward sounding songs have been removed from your playlist, substituted by tracks based on customer ratings and the algorithm of your preferred streaming service. In regard to randomness, the way we listen to music via online platforms has more in common with traditional, analog radio, Kimberly Peters talks about in Rebel Radio. But even if you don’t know which song the algorithm picks for you next, you are seldom surprised by its sound. Streaming services have become powerful digital platforms. Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Swedish based Spotify co-shape their users’ experience of the world and reanimates discussions ranging from Thirdspace (Soja 1996) to Hyperreality (Eco 1987). If you want to dig deeper into the role digital platforms play for our societies, we strongly recommend picking up Sarah Barns’ Platform Urbanism (2020), where case studies on Uber, Facebook, and Airbnb shed light on how everyday life is constantly being impacted, remade and perpetually reconfigured. So, if artists and albums become less important in a globalized music economy, players like writer-producers and places—whether in Los Angeles, Stockholm or in transit—shape how songs in our pop culture sound like. In other words: It matters less that a song is performed by a band like Abba, Roxette, or Dr. Alban. What matters is the recording studio being located in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, run by a famous producer such as Max Martin who is globally recognized and interlinked. Ola Johansson’s Songs from Sweden depicts a music industry, centered in Stockholm but operating globally. Gathering about half of the nation’s production studios and ancillary industries since the 1980s, the cluster is inspired by both national and global cultural norms. It is intriguing to learn about Cheiron Studios and leading figures like Max Martin and Denniz Pop and even not-so famous ones like Tove Lo. It is equally fascinating to read about Swedish governmental programs to push digitalization and support residents’ computerization, like “subsidized personal computer purchases.” With a fast internet connection, and global

SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE: THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC

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players like Spotify based in Stockholm, it is equally simple for consumers to shift from buying records to streaming playlists, as it is easy for digital natives to get involved with the music business. As Johansson states: “As the world moved towards streaming, Sweden lead the way.” On his search for the determining factors that led to Stockholm as the Mecca of pop music production, Johansson refuses to fall into the trap of using Swedish culture as an explanatory factor to describe the essence of Swedish music production. As he reveals, many stereotypes ascribed to Sweden arise out of a global mediascape, that glorifies the Nordic country’s creative environment. To exaggerate: What else can you do except compose a hit single, when it’s too cold outside to leave the house? Johansson comments: [A]cademic geographers remain for good reasons highly skeptical about assertions that too crudely employ environmental determinism. As Johansson shows, Swedish pop music is heavily based on the global interconnectedness of its producers, it is “constructed by multinational teams.” Thus, the final sound of a song is compatible to our musical background, no matter where we come from. Finally, Ola Johansson’s book discusses the recipe of the Swedish hit single composition. As a teaser for the upcoming pages, here is just one of the ingredients: “[A] good melody can be ruined by bad sounding lyrics.” There are examples of wrong grammar and unfitting words that made it into the final lyrics only because of their acoustic potential for global crossover. As music enthusiasts who listen to a wide variety of songs, the co-editors of the series can relate to the observation that the sound of words in a foreign language may sometimes be more important than the lyrics’ actual content. But if you try to pick out single words for context or, even, for enhancing your foreign language skills, the deliberate fabrication of linguistic errors is somewhat hard to digest. It makes us want to end this preface with a quote from the non-Swedish Depeche Mode song Enjoy The Silence: “Words are very unnecessary. They can only do harm.” But if we listen carefully to what Ola Johansson tells us, we hear a strong case for pop music, that, first and foremost, is aimed to entertain us. And, boy, are those Songs from Sweden a joy to listen to. Or, as Robbie Williams puts it: “Let me entertain you.” Torsten Wissmann Joseph Palis

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Works Cited Barns, S. (2020). Platform urbanism: Negotiating platform ecosystems in connected cities. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Eco, U. (1987). Travels in hyperreality. London: Picador Books. Peters, K. (2018). Sound, space and society: Rebel radio. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Soja, E. W. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-andimagined places. Oxford: Blackwell.

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 is a lightly revised version of my 2010 article “Beyond ABBA: The Globalization of Swedish Popular Music” which was published in FOCUS on Geography (volume 53, issue 4, pp. 134–141). It has been modified to fit the format of a chapter in this monograph and it has been updated with more recent data. It is published with permission from the American Geographical Society. I have benefitted from discussions about music with numerous people over the years. Those include my long-time collaborator Thomas Bell, Tyler Sonnichsen at Central Michigan University who introduced me to the idea of circulation, Suzanne Johansson and Elisabeth Brandin at Linnaeus University who steered me in the direction of hybridity, Luis Barros at the University of Pennsylvania who has taken an interest in my research and its connections with the ecosystem of local music scenes, and Severin Guillard (University of the West of Scotland) who pointed out that the notion of buzz would also fit my theoretical approach. A portion of the research was conducted at the university library at Lund, Sweden and I would like to thank family and friends in southern Sweden that hosted me while I was there. Shelley is, as always, my tireless copyeditor. And finally, Joseph Palis encouraged me to pursue Palgrave Pivot as an outlet for my research.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A number of students at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown have also been very helpful in assisting me with data collection, mapmaking, charts, and references. Thank you Karissa Shomo, Michael Pritchard, Hope Leer, and Lori Anderson.

Contents

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Introduction: The Swedish Music Miracle, from 1.0 to 2.0 The Swedish Music Miracle 1.0 Explaining the Swedish Success The Role Model Thesis The Early Adopter Thesis The English Proficiency Thesis The Globalization Thesis The Small Market Thesis The Industrial Cluster Thesis The Governmental and Institutional Support Thesis Discussion and Outlook References

1 7 9 9 10 11 12 13 14 17 18 22

Local Music in a Global Network: Circulation, Reputation, and Hybridity Circulation Globalization and the Cultural Industries Theories of Circulation Reputation Buzz

25 25 26 28 30 34

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3

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CONTENTS

Hybridity Introduction to Cultural Hybridity What Is Swedish Music? Swedish Music as Local–Global Hybrid References

35 35 37 38 39

The Main Players Method The Historical Background to 2.0 Data Analysis Reputation in Songwriting and Production The People Network: Global and Local The Role of Publishers and Record Companies in Songwriting The Idol Factor Swedish Collaboration Style Other Elements of Swedish Culture The Role of Stockholm From Stockholm to Los Angeles and Back Again The Need for Proximity References

43 44 45 57 57 63

An Analysis of Swedish Pop Music The Songwriting Process What Is Swedish Pop? The Cheiron Sound as Swedish Sound Analytical Songwriting Melody-First Songwriting Lyrics in Swedish Pop Music Genre Influences in Sweden Genre Crossing as Swedish Swedish–American Hybrid Elements Circulation of Styles References

65 69 71 75 81 84 88 92 99 100 104 105 107 110 111 114 121 123 125 128

CONTENTS

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Concluding Thoughts References

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137 143

References

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Index

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3

The origin of internationally popular Swedish artists The location of former Cheiron Studios at Fridhemsplan in Stockholm, 2019 (Photo: Jared Raab/Banger Films) Output by writer-producer on a yearly basis, 1993–2018 (The datasource is the industry website Allmusic.com. All records [including singles, albums, and other formats] with “composer” and/or “producer” in the credit column were included. The data were screened for duplicate entries and compilation albums were omitted. Note that most records have more than one writer-producer, so they will appear multiple times in the chart) Grammy wins and nominations, by year (Wins show the number of individuals in the Swedish cluster who won a Grammy each year. Nominations show the number of individuals in the Swedish cluster who were nominated for a Grammy [excluding those who won]. Categories indicate the number of categories [e.g., best dance recording, song of the year, etc.] that the Swedes won or were nominated in. As many recordings have multiple writers and producers, categories as depicted in the figure are typically lower than wins plus nominations in any given year [Data source: www.grammy.com])

15 53

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 3.4

Fig. 4.1

Distribution of music firms in central Stockholm (The map shows all firms that are members of Export Music Sweden and with an address in central Stockholm [according to the organization’s database at exms.org]) Parody of music festival poster with typical lineup (Source Neat Dude Collective)

89 119

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 3.1

Preconditions for the development of an export music industry The main players in the Swedish songwriter–producer cluster

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Swedish Music Miracle, from 1.0 to 2.0

Abstract Observers of popular music know that Swedish artists have achieved commercial distinction, as well as artistic acclaim, around the world. This is what I call the Swedish Music Miracle 1.0. However, the Swedish music industry has more and more emphasized songwriting and production rather than artists. Thus, a transition from 1.0 to 2.0 has been underway for quite some time. This chapter explores the reasons behind Sweden’s position as an important popular music center. In no small part, geographic factors have played a role in this process. These include themes from economic and cultural geography, such as Sweden’s position in the world as a small, cosmopolitan country; the spatial organization of the music industry; and the tendency for even geographic development within Sweden. Keywords Music geography · Swedish music · Songwriting · Music production · Music industry

In 2016, the prolific Swedish songwriter and producer Max Martin received the prestigious Polar Prize in Stockholm. Pop dignitaries from around the world praised the choice. Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, and Adam Levine of the band Maroon 5 called Martin a master, a perfectionist, and obsessed with making music (TV4 Play 2016). Katy Perry continued to say that Martin has a childlike sense of melody, while Simon Cowell of the Idol television show opined, “I don’t think Max is human. © The Author(s) 2020 O. Johansson, Songs from Sweden, Geographies of Media, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2736-4_1

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He was made in Sweden to make hit records” (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016). During the Polar Prize interview held in front of a live audience, the interviewer, Swedish music journalist Jan Gradvall, added that Martin’s sound is always ahead of the game and that he emphasizes simplicity as the most effective and best method of making music (ibid.). Anyone who is not a music industry insider may be forgiven for not knowing Max Martin. Besides a series of interviews at the time of the Polar Prize, Max Martin rarely speaks with media and prefers to be a behind-the-scenes person only. But the truth is that Martin is one of the most prolific and commercially successful songwriter–producers in pop history. While maintaining a low profile, he has amassed a record of countless number one hits around the world. In fact, Martin has written more songs that topped the U.S. Billboard list than anybody else in history, except for John Lennon and Paul McCartney. As a producer, Max Martin is second as measured by Billboard hits after George Martin (no relation to Max), the producer of the Beatles (Hunt 2017). For almost two decades, not just Max Martin, but many other Swedish songwriters and producers have acquired a remarkable degree of global respect. They are the men—and they are almost exclusively men—behind leading pop stars in America and elsewhere. (Other famous pop producers of the early twenty-first century are mainly Americans, such as Pharrell Williams, Dr. Luke, and Timbaland.) Quantifying the import of Swedish writer–producers is not straightforward, but it is common in media to depict Sweden as number one in per capita songwriting, even ahead of the United States and Britain (Mattmar 2013). Such assertions are supported by statistics such as the fact that 25% of the number one hits on the 2014 Billboard chart were written or co-written by Swedes (Gradvall and Åkterman 2017). Many of the hits by artists like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, One Direction, and Katy Perry are connected to Sweden. These artists often travel to Stockholm (which is the hub of the Swedish music cluster) to negotiate, co-write songs, and record. Conversely, Swedish writers and producers operate globally and can be found working in music industry spaces elsewhere, such as in Los Angeles. How did this happen? This monograph explores the roots, longevity, and character of the cluster of songwriters and producers in Sweden. My thinking about this phenomenon is grounded in the perspective that popular music, an important element of the cultural economy, exists in globalized networks. Certainly, there are local factors that can explain why Sweden has played an outsized role in

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the music industry. For example, Sweden has a long history as a “pop country.” It is a style long favored by the public, from the radio show Svensktoppen which has for more than 50 years presented a top-10 list to the public every weekend, to the prominence of the Eurovision Song Contest. Ultimately, however, Swedish-derived pop is the product of cultural and personal interconnectedness among multiple nodes around the world. The quote below from the Financial Times, which describes Britney Spears’ 2003 hit Toxic, exemplifies this process: So, an American singer had a hit with a song written by an Englishwoman and three Swedes, with help from a tune used in an Indian film; the song was recorded in Stockholm and Hollywood, then mixed in Stockholm. This is the way the pop world now works. In the days of Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building1 , jobbing songwriters would sit around a piano bashing out hits but many of today’s most popular songs are not so much written as constructed, by multinational teams. (Cheal 2015, p. 15)

The “constructed” part above involve both songwriting and production. Traditionally, writing and production are two separate steps in the music-making process. Today, however, almost all of the individuals scrutinized in this study are considered writer–producers. At least in the world of pop, the two have increasingly merged. The main reason is advances in music-making technology. The role of the producer is to create the sound of a song, which is an integral part of a composition, equally important as lyrics or melody. The writer often has a clear idea of what the sound of a song-in-progress should be like, but in the past, the writer may have presented his composition to artists and record labels in a rudimentary form. Today, laptop-based software allows a writer to quickly and inexpensively record a professional sounding demo. Thus, technology has pushed a new generation of songwriters to learn production technology. On the other hand, somebody that used to be a producer-only now has an economic incentive to be involved in writing as well. In the contemporary music industry, the rights to compositions are more lucrative than the recordings. In other words, writing credits are much more economically advantageous than production credits. 1 This is a reference to the dominant music publishers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which were located in a section of Manhattan in New York City informally referred to as Tin Pan Alley. The Brill Building, also located in Manhattan, housed songwriters during the 1950s and 1960s. I will return to this comparison in Concluding Thoughts.

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I have written about Swedish music for a number of years, starting with the 2010 article Beyond ABBA: The Globalization of the Swedish Popular Music. There I identified a series of factors that explained the success of Swedish popular music. The article emphasized Swedish performing artists during the 1990s and early 2000s, but for a number of reasons explored in this monograph, Sweden’s role in the global music scene has moved toward production and songwriting. The earlier success of Swedish artists is what I call the Swedish Music Miracle 1.0, using the common metaphor from computer software that are constantly issued in new iterations. In Beyond ABBA, I barely touched upon the importance of the songwriter–producer phenomenon; therefore, this Swedish Music Miracle 2.0 needs to be written. The 2.0 metaphor is apt as the current Swedish music industry did not emerge out of nowhere; rather, it is built on knowledge, skills, and structures that were put in place during a previous era. One the other hand, the change from 1.0 to 2.0 is not discrete. Swedish artists continue to be popular internationally. Especially female performers such as Tove Lo, Lykke Li, Zara Larsson, and First Aid Kit have been successful recently. In electronic dance music, the Swedish acts Avicii and Swedish House Mafia were central to the global mainstreaming of the genre. Electronic dance music is also an extension of the Swedish DJ community, which, as we will see later, is intertwined with Sweden’s songwriter–producer cluster, again suggesting strong path dependencies in the development of the Swedish music industry. I also use the term “miracle.” In part, this is an acquiescence to the tendency in media to use hyperbolic language. The Merriam-Webster (2019) dictionary defines a miracle as “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” But it also acknowledges a secularization of the concept, as a secondary definition of a miracle is “an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment.” The latter can reasonably be applied to the case of Swedish music. But hasn’t the topic of Swedish songwriters and producers been covered already? The answer is that a large number of short journalistic accounts are available. Many of those I draw upon in this monograph. To date, the most comprehensive study is the 2015 book The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by the American music journalist John Seabrook. While not solely focused on Sweden, it explores how the Swedish songwriting phenomenon emerged and how it has played a central role in the contemporary pop music landscape. However, no academic research on the topic is

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yet available. Therefore, my aim is a theoretically informed analysis that supplements media portrayals, yet also a readable narrative that hopefully is of interest to those who are not in academia. I analyze the Music Miracle 2.0 from three theoretical points of view— Swedish pop music production as (1) an element of the global circulation of music; (2) having acquired a favorable reputation in the global music industry; and (3) a global–local hybrid. Circulation emphasizes continuous “feedback loops” to understand the development of music rather than traditional geographic diffusion models where styles of music have a point of origin and spread elsewhere in the world. Circulation instead stresses the important role of networks, both among individuals and through media, which transmit popular culture across space. Within networks of circulation, there are locations that continuously influence the overall system. For example, Swedish songwriter–producers may invent stylistic elements that are adopted elsewhere and continue to circulate. It is also crucial for an individual to acquire a positive reputation in order to develop a prominent position within the network of global pop music. Reputation is the collective representation of somebody’s actions and results (Fombrun 1996). That representation suggests an ability to deliver value for “stakeholders”—in this case artists and record labels. Collective representation means that reputation is a social construct where diverse perceptions fuse into a generalized reputation. These perceptions are held by interacting people who quite often know each other. Connecting music circulation and individual reputation, this study explores how contacts and collaboration, as well as information on the best practices of songwriting and production, flow between Sweden and other nodes in the global music network. Pop music is often imagined as a homogenous product devoid of any local content, as global capitalism searches for cultural expressions that appeal to people irrespective of their geographic, ethnic, or cultural background. However, this is a simplified perspective as music is often a hybrid form of culture that incorporates a divergent set of transnational aesthetics. While circulation in combination with reputation situate the production of Swedish pop music within the global music industry, cultural hybridity—the mixing of cultures in an increasingly globalized world—in combination with circulation emphasize the content of the music. The structure of the book is as follows. After this introduction, the section The Swedish Music Miracle 1.0 is a history of recent Swedish

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music that provides an important context to the rest of the book. It specifically spells out background factors that explain the success of Swedish music. The remainder of this chapter is a lightly revised version of my aforementioned article Beyond ABBA: The Globalization of the Swedish Popular Music. Changes are limited to data updates, the omission of some figures, and the occasional fine-tuning of the text so that it works as a monograph chapter rather than a freestanding research article. The chapter text is used by permission of the article copyright holder, the American Geographical Society. Chapter 2 (Local Music in a Global Network: Circulation, Reputation, and Hybridity) introduces the theoretical framework that contextualizes the emergence and the perpetuation of Swedish songwriters and producers. These interconnected theories position Swedish music industry and creativity in global pop music culture. Chapters 3 and 4 contain an analysis of the data material on Swedish writer–producers. Chapter 3 (The Main Players) addresses the people network, both among the Swedish music actors but also the relationship between the Swedish constellation of writer–producers and important agents elsewhere in the global music industry (primarily in the United Stated and Great Britain). Chapter 4 (An Analysis of Swedish Pop Music) focuses specifically on the music and the process by which it took shape. In reality, the analytical distinction between people and the music they produce is somewhat fluid and the reader will notice similarities between the two chapters. Finally, the monograph ends with Concluding Thoughts (Chapter 5) that synthesize the empirical material. In some ways, this monograph represents a personal deviation. Much of my previous scholarship has focused on rock music, in part because of personal tastes and preferences (e.g., Johansson and Bell 2009; Johansson 2013; Johansson and Bell 2014; Johansson et al. 2016). However, virtually all the music covered herein is unabashedly commercial pop. Initially, this new emphasis presented a problem as I was not well versed in “top40” pop beyond incidental exposure and the vagaries of daily life. Enter early teenager. Chauffeuring a daughter—equipped with a smartphone, a Spotify app, and a propensity to quiz her father about all the latest hits— back and forth from daily athletic practices has been a learning experience. With a reasonably good batting average, I can now tell the styles and sounds of One Direction, Katy Perry, and Ariana Grande apart. Without that assistance, it is doubtful that I could have completed this monograph.

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The Swedish Music Miracle 1.0 In the minds of most people, music from Sweden is synonymous with the 1970s mega band ABBA. Careful observers of popular music know, however, that more recently Swedish artists have achieved both artistic acclaim and commercial success around the world. During the last three decades Sweden has become a force to be reckoned with in pop and rock music. This section explores the reasons behind Sweden’s position as a popular music center. In no small part, geographic factors have played a role in this process. These include themes from cultural and economic geography, including Sweden’s place in the world as a small, outwardoriented country; the spatial arrangement of the music industry, both in Sweden and globally; and the propensity for geographic egalitarianism within Sweden. Sweden had its musical moments before ABBA. A quirky, 1960s instrumental band called the Spotniks was popular both in Europe and Japan, and the band Blue Swede scored a number one hit single in the United States with Hooked on a Feeling in 1974. But such forays into the world of pop paled in comparison to ABBA, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with the song Waterloo. (The band’s time capsule Eurovision stage appearance is available on YouTube.) That emblematic song was followed by an unprecedented string of worldwide hits until their final album in 1981. Subsequent ABBA revivals, especially via musicals and films like Mamma Mia, Muriel’s Wedding, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert have solidified their songs (e.g., Dancing Queen; Fernando; Money, Money, Money; and The Winner Takes It All ) as bedrocks of the popular music canon. After ABBA, a new generation of Swedish artists made it to the global music scene. To begin, Sweden shares some of the responsibility for the hairspray-and-spandex heavy metal music that was popular in the 1980s; the band Europe scored a hit with The Final Countdown in 1986. Two years later, Neneh Cherry helped making rap more mainstream with Buffalo Stance. A more sustained effort, nineteen Top-40 hit singles in the U.K., for example, was accomplished by Roxette from 1988 onward. The Look, Listen to Your Heart, and It Must Have Been Love are stand-outs in the group’s pop-rock repertoire. More blatantly using associations with ABBA (see Hartshorne 2003), the two men and two women formula of Ace of Base took The Sign to number one on Billboard in 1994. That same year Rednex capitalized on a concoction of Euro disco and American

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folk tradition and introduced Cotton Eye Joe on the world. And in 1996, the indie band The Cardigans engaged in what had become a Swedish national sport—occupying the top spot on the U.S. singles chart—with the enduring song Lovefool. (The band’s guitar player Peter Svensson later became an important songwriter for numerous global pop artists.) Data from various economic indicators, such as royalties and albums sold, indicate that the Swedish Music Miracle 1.0 started circa 1990 and continued uninterrupted until 2003 (Export Music Sweden 2006). The Swedish government took notice and outlined the music industry in an official report (Forss 1999) noting that the music export per capita was higher in Sweden than in Great Britain, Australia, Denmark, or Ireland. Royalty payments from foreign markets were twice the U.S. per capita figure. The notion of Sweden as the third largest exporter of popular music after the United States and the U.K. became a mantra in the description of the country’s music industry success (Hallencreutz et al. 2004). Revenue from abroad came primarily from the two top markets, the United States and the U.K. (Lofthus 2002),2 but Swedish record labels have successfully targeted the significant Japanese market. For example, Japanese indie pop fans responded favorably to a band like the Cardigans as they reportedly loved their straightforward melodies, coming from a place they imagine to be clean and populated by nice people (see STIM-nytt 1997; Bergendal 1998). In truth, the music industry probably never accounted for more than 0.5% of Sweden’s overall exports in any given year, but Hallencreutz and Lundequist (2001) point out that it nevertheless equals the value of iron ore or Absolut Vodka flowing out of the country. After 2003, Swedish music exports declined. This can be explained by the worldwide downturn in the music industry sales, but it also appears that Swedish pop did not produce as many top sellers. In 2003, music exports were valued at 7 billion Swedish kronor (approximately one billion USD), but dropped to 2 billion kronor in 2006 (Export Music Sweden 2006) as the industry struggled through a structural change away

2 The Swedish export to the United States is remarkable as the U.S. music market is 95% domestic (Power 2003), meaning there is a small share for international artists to compete for. Together with countries like Egypt and Pakistan, the United States has one of the least internationalized music markets in the world. U.S. popular culture remains insular and deeply suspicious of anything foreign.

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from physical record sales and toward online downloading and streaming. Current data (2016) still indicate export incomes of 2 billion kronor (Musiksverige 2016), although such modest numbers do not capture the importance of writing and production addressed in subsequent chapters as that income often flow into non-Swedish-based companies and performance-rights organizations such as ASCAP.

Explaining the Swedish Success Sometimes the discourse about Swedish music latches onto easily understood, but only marginally accurate, descriptions. In the popular imagination it is commonly assumed that a particular nation is inherently different from other places, and that its natural environment has shaped its people’s culture and behavior. Gordon Sander (2001, pp. 31, 35), for example, writes in the Scandinavian Review that “like the Irish, and other musically-inclined people, most Swedes…are virtually born with a tune on their lips” and that the climate—that “long, cold, dank Swedish winter”— is responsible for Swedes huddling indoors making music. Bell (1998) has noticed similar popular arguments about drizzly, gray, and grungy Seattle, but academic geographers remain for good reasons highly skeptical about assertions that too crudely employ environmental determinism. At the same time, there is a credible literature on why Swedish music has caught on internationally. In the following sections a set of ideas are introduced that can explain the Swedish success, drawing primarily on material in the Swedish language. The Role Model Thesis One explanation for Swedish success is that ABBA’s popularity created a role model for other Swedish artists to follow. The role model thesis fits into a larger narrative of Swedish progress during the 1970s in a wide variety of areas. Within a couple of years of ABBA’s breakthrough, the sports stars Björn Borg and Ingemar Stenmark set off an avalanche of world-class Swedish tennis players and alpine skiers where none had previously existed. Why would music be different? On closer inspection, the problem with the role model thesis applied to music is the significant time lag between ABBA’s arrival on the world stage and subsequent success. The first major post-ABBA hit was in 1986, Europe’s The Final Countdown, more than a decade after ABBA’s breakthrough. At the same

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time, an infrastructure for music making and marketing had to be built, so perhaps a time lag is to be expected. Moreover, the business mastermind behind ABBA, the manager Stikkan Anderson, used Swedish music industry personnel in production, video, and touring to support ABBA’s international crusade, and that acquisition of knowledge was to be applied later during Sweden’s music expansion (Hallencreutz et al. 2004). The sound and style of ABBA may be a role model for Swedish popular music as it is often understood as placeless, marked by an international style with a barely audible Swedish component. ABBA’s music, unlike Anglo-American pop and rock, de-emphasized heavy bass and drum beats in favor of a light and sparkling vocal-oriented sound that, according to Hartshorne (2003), appealed to audiences around the world. A musical analysis of subsequent successful Swedish pop songs also concluded that their melodies tend to be simple, almost resembling nursery tunes, and therefore easily appreciated by many different cultures (Sandgren 2000). Swedish pop is also, from this perspective, often considered to be unabashedly commercial. There is probably some truth to this observation, and the strategy again appears modeled after ABBA. The Early Adopter Thesis But one band’s success can hardly be the sole explanation for sustained musical productivity. There are additional underlying cultural, economic, and political factors that play significant roles. Economic geographers stress that Sweden is an early adopter of new innovation and technology (Porter 1990). Swedish business has the capacity to capitalize on new ideas and trends that are not necessarily indigenous to Sweden. For example, IKEA embraces trends and produces furniture for mass markets around the world, and in clothing H&M similarly offers fashionable but relatively inexpensive products. And as noted, Swedish artists can quickly crank out catchy “right here, right now” pop music better than just about anyone. The early adoption phenomenon has been a trait of Swedish music for a long time, both among artists and listeners. British and American rock acts became popular in Sweden earlier than in other non-Anglo countries (Brolinsson and Larsen 1997; Nylöf 1990). Before rock and roll, jazz established a fanbase in Sweden earlier than in other parts of Europe, with the possible exception of Paris. Foreign artists, usually British bands testing the waters outside the U.K., took notice. For example, the

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Beatles’ first tour abroad occurred in Sweden in 1963, coinciding with (and perhaps creating) a wave of new domestic pop bands in Sweden during the 1960s. Fifteen years later, the Sex Pistols spread the punk movement in Sweden before they attempted to do so elsewhere. The tendency to adopt outside trends readily may be, particularly if you ask a Swede, a result of the malleability of Swedish culture. Modernity is valued over tradition, and, from a comparative perspective, a relatively weak national sentiment is characteristic of contemporary Sweden. In other words, a cosmopolitan outlook shapes social life in Sweden. For Swedish youth (especially among the middle class) to study abroad, spend time as an au pair (if you’re female), or simply bum around the globe for a while is a socially endorsed and encouraged experience that is expected to form a cosmopolitan-minded citizen. The English Proficiency Thesis Any foreigner who has visited Sweden knows that the level of proficiency in the English language is high. The EF English Proficiency Index ranks Sweden number two in the world (after the Netherlands) among countries where English is not the native tongue (Education First 2017). Like English, Swedish is a language of Germanic origin so English is not too distant and problematic to learn. Movies and TV are subtitled, rather than dubbed, so all Swedes are exposed to English virtually on a daily basis. But this is true for approximately half of Europe, so subtitling is not a perfect explanation for proficiency in English, although there is a high correlation between the two. And, in line with the cosmopolitan outlook theory above, the forward march of English into daily life in Sweden is not particularly contentious; there is little in the way of a linguistic purism movement á la France in Sweden. How does this documented English proficiency matter in terms of music? Most importantly, it enables some understanding of the nuances of British and American English, both in their standard form as well as contemporary idioms and slang. The meaning of music is transmitted, in part, via lyrics, so it is essential for an artist to have a firm grasp, not only of grammar and syntax, but also of the subtleties of expression that offer much-needed “credibility” in pop culture. True, there have been awkward moments when Swedish artists have adopted English, but unlike their German or French counterparts, Swedes can compete on a reasonably equal playing field with native English-speaking artists. Many Swedish

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artists even prefer to sing in English because they say that the Swedish language has an awkward rhythm that makes it unsuitable for rock and pop music, and some even point out that it is convenient to “hide” behind impersonal English lyrics because singing in Swedish makes the lyrical content too immediate, intimate, and emotional. And, of course, few people consider Swedes to be excessively emotional and extroverted, at least that is the cultural stereotype. The Globalization Thesis Early in their career, ABBA couldn’t break into the British market. There seemed to be British resistance, especially among the gatekeepers in the media and music industry, to accept non-Anglo pop artists as legitimate (Palm 2008). Likewise, the band never truly conquered the U.S. market. This legitimacy monopoly of Anglo-American artists lasted for a long time, but it has diminished more recently. By 2000, most Swedish artists who were successful at home were subsequently marketed in Britain and/or the United States; that wasn’t the case at earlier times (Löwstedt et al. 2001). However, the model how to “break” an artist internationally has changed in the internet era, as argued for example by Wikström (2013). Changes in the music industry have put financial pressure on talent scouting activities and marketing budgets; therefore, the trend toward increasingly globalized markets has been disrupted. Instead, artists may attempt to connect with far-away audiences through new channels, such as YouTube. This may not be as effective: Ferreira and Waldfogel (2013) have documented a turn toward domestic music in many national markets. Thus, the global opportunities for artists from small countries such as Sweden may have paradoxically diminished in an era of near-boundless information flows. Over time, Swedish artists, and the Swedish music industry in general, also had some learning to do, both in terms of developing commercially viable music and being able to market that music globally. Part of the problem was that the Swedish media landscape of the past was very different than it is today. With only two television channels in Sweden well into the 1980s, and only noncommercial radio with limited popular music programming, the capacity for Swedish artists to absorb international influences was restricted (despite the early adoption tendencies discussed earlier). Eventually, the arrival of MTV had a significant impact. For example, MTV Europe was so popular in Sweden that the station

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programmed a large number of Swedish artists, which resulted in more exposure of international artists in Sweden, and vice versa. With ABBA as the early outlier, Swedish music started to globalize during the late 1980s and early 1990s, which coincides both with general globalization tendencies in the world economy, as well as the successful international emergence of Swedish music. More artists from a wide range of countries found audiences around the world; hence, the globalization thesis is not applicable solely to Swedish music, but it does provide a context in which Swedish artists managed to thrive. The Small Market Thesis Sweden is a country of only 10 million people, and thus a correspondingly small number of potential artists, listeners, and music buyers. However, the smallness of Sweden can also be an advantage. In parallel with other industries, Sweden’s economy has been traditionally dominated by large companies that grew from a domestic base to become large transnational corporations (Sölvell et al. 1992). The logic behind this form of globalization is that because the domestic market is small, it does not properly allow for companies to grow. Basically, when Volvo has sold a car to just about every Swedish household, the only way to expand is to pursue an international strategy. Certainly, many Swedish artists do well by singing in Swedish and capturing a significant share of the home market (approximately one-third of the Swedish music market is domestically produced music). And even for artists with global aspirations and a cosmopolitan way of absorbing global influences, a demanding home market is foundational for their development and ability to go global. Moreover, there are only so many times that an artist can schedule a concert in a Swedish city without diminishing returns setting in, so touring circuits have to be broadened, primarily to Europe, and possibly to the United States and the rest of the world. This imperative is increasingly important because, like elsewhere, playing live is one of the few remaining ways for Swedish artists to generate enough income to stay in business. The small market thesis does not only explain the globalization of mainstream Swedish pop, but also its niché-oriented music. Swedish hardrock, especially within specific subcultural genres, has had international success. For example, Sweden is viewed as a center of so-called death metal. The market for this music is so narrow that artists (e.g., Amon Amarth, In Flames, and Meshuggah) have a great incentive to seek

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out an international audience. The effect is that bands that are relatively unknown in Sweden sell a lot of records abroad; in the case of death metal, Germany is a particularly large market. Admittedly, these artists are not household names, but a few weeks before originally writing this chapter, I was engrossed in a lengthy discussion with my local Pennsylvania Sears salesperson about the merits of Millencolin, a Swedish skate punk band who also has sought a global niché audience. This suggests that if you’re in the right demographic—in the case of Millencolin, let’s say a 20-year-old wearing baggy shorts, Vans sneakers, large key chains, and riding a skateboard (at least when he’s not at work)—these bands are huge! The Industrial Cluster Thesis Not only the skills and strategies of the artists but also the nature of the Swedish music industry have been emphasized as a fundamental aspect of Sweden’s music exports. Geographers at Uppsala University have investigated Swedish music from an economic–geographic perspective, applying economist Michael Porter’s industrial cluster model to the Swedish music industry (e.g., Hallencreutz and Lundequist 2001; Hallencreutz et al. 2004). According to this research, the Swedish cluster consists of specialized input (production companies and songwriters), strategic services (publishing and video production), and supporting institutions (music education and industry organizations). Forss (1999) has also noted connections between music recording technology skills and engineering knowledge in other sectors of the Swedish economy. Because of these interconnections, the Swedish music cluster exhibits high levels of innovation and competitiveness. The number of companies in the cluster has also reached a critical mass to be dynamic; approximately 4–5000 companies, most of them very small (Hallencreutz et al. 2004; KK-stiftelsen 2007). Geographically, all leading music publishers and record companies are headquartered near one another in downtown Stockholm. Overall, half of all the firms in the music industry are located in the Stockholm area (Power 2003). This concentration to Stockholm is not very surprising as the capital city is the center of much economic, political, and cultural life in Sweden. However, some creative aspects of the industry—e.g., the origin of artists—exhibit a more dispersed geographical pattern, which is typical of rock music elsewhere as well (Fig. 1.1). Traditionally, as many as two-thirds of the independent

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Fig. 1.1 The origin of internationally popular Swedish artists

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record labels were located outside Stockholm (Arvidsson 2004), although labels play a diminished role in Sweden as they do elsewhere. Because of the industry’s relative smallness, the non-Stockholm segment is also part of the network of cooperative learning, and thus it is appropriate to speak not only of a localized Stockholm cluster but also a national music industry cluster in Sweden (KK-stiftelsen 2007). This small industry is characterized by a network where people know each other as both rivals and partners and where the exchange of ideas and knowledge frequently takes place. The industry has cooperated in an attempt to build Swedish music into an international brand. Export Music Sweden is a Chamber of Commerce-like organization for the Swedish music industry with the goal of promoting Swedish music abroad through music exhibits at venues such as the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. Its goal is also to promote the economic importance of the Swedish music industry, to develop industry statistics, and to facilitate intra-industry networking (Ward 2003). Export Music Sweden has also worked with the national government to promote Swedish music abroad. The government understands the potential of music as a branding tool to position Sweden as a creative place. Another industry association is Musiksverige, which compile industry data and reports and, according to its webpage, provides “commercial Swedish music with the best possible foundation and environment needed to create, develop and thrive internationally through collaboration with other creative industries, government agencies and departments.” The music industry in Sweden consists of subsidiaries of the global music industry (record labels, concert promoters, and publishers) plus a few independents that either have historic roots in Swedish music or are small, recent start-ups. The majors, with 80% of the Swedish market (KKstiftelsen 2007), generally developed through the acquisition of domestic labels, so they too have a Swedish lineage. The majors’ original intent was to capitalize on the domestic market, but subsequently they also scouted local artists for global markets. One label, Stockholm Records, for example, was founded with the explicit goal to develop artists to sell abroad, and its most successful artist was the indie pop band, the Cardigans. The question is whether the transnational ownership of the industry has been positive or negative. Some studies suggest that it has, in fact, been positive. First, it awards Swedish artists a potential global network, as major labels are better positioned to help with contacts, marketing, distribution, and so on (Åberg 1999). This advantage is, however, not

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unique to Sweden but rather a global economic trend. Second, the local subsidiaries of the music industry majors operate with relative autonomy and can therefore build locally based competencies, which has, according to Lundequist and Hallencreutz (2003), added to the cluster’s competitiveness and profitability. Arvidsson (2009) expresses a similar opinion, stating that the strategic decisions of the majors are often the same as their Swedish predecessors, so they operate as de facto Swedish companies. One industry report has, however, observed at least one drawback: organizationally the industry has not been able to create enough collective institutions (e.g., Export Music Sweden) because it is foreign-owned (KK-stiftelsen 2007). Recently, the globalization of the concert market has reached Sweden as well; U.S.-based Live Nation is the largest concert promoter in Sweden, including prominent festivals such as Way out West and Sweden Rock Festival. The Governmental and Institutional Support Thesis Finally, one must also consider the broader social and political environment within which Swedish popular music has emerged. The Swedish state has a reputation for providing a generous amount of services to the population, and that is true for music-related support as well. Some say the widespread tradition of musical training in Sweden has laid the foundation for the global success of Swedish music (Persson and Lindström 2004). The primary mechanism is the municipal music schools (Kommunala musikskolan). Approximately 30% of Swedish children attend such publicly subsidized music education after regular school hours (Hallencreutz et al. 2004). That’s where virtually all Swedish musicians started out. For example, producer Max Martin from the introductory vignette nails down its importance: “I have public music education to thank for everything” (Löwstedt et al. 2001, p. 349 [my translation]). In addition, Swedish adult education associations (studieförbund) offer rehearsal space, musical equipment, workshops, and concert opportunities in a later stage when actual bands are formed. Approximately 100,000 people play music though education association activities. These associations are nonprofit organizations but subsidized by the state. For example, bands that participate in “study circles” (e.g., band rehearsals) receive a state grant if at least five people are present (Fornäs 1994). The public sector also provides rehearsal space and amateur concerts at youth recreation centers (fritidsgård). Does that mean the Swedish state

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is culturally enlightened and values popular music for its own sake? Not necessarily. Bjerde (1994) states that government support primarily has a social control objective—if youth are playing music, no matter how awful it is, at least they’re not “out on the streets” drinking alcohol. Today, it is not unreasonable to assume the government may also consider the economic importance of the cultural industries when it supports popular music infrastructure. Beyond music education, the National Council for Cultural Affairs (Statens kulturråd) supports music via recording grants (Fonogramstödet ), although pop and rock music receive only a small percent of the monies. Forss (1999) detects a modest positive impact on the domestic market for artists that have received recording grants, but no discernible impact on exports. Also, County Music Organizations (Länsmusiken) support musical events financed by regional and national funds, and various community-level nonprofit organizations arrange concerts and festivals, in part supported by public funds. In the past, “people’s parks” (folkets park) brought domestic and some international artists even to small town and rural Sweden. These venues are quasi-public in character and strongly tied to the country’s labor movement. The exposure to new music across the country may have enabled disadvantaged areas and their residents to be influenced by recent trends and in turn provide talent to the music industry. For example, the people’s parks made rock music available around the country early in the 1960s, which promoted nationwide artist and audience development (Löwstedt et al. 2001). Overall, Sweden is characterized by relatively modest cultural differences between rural and urban areas, especially in comparison to the United States, and it is notable how many new Swedish artists come from small towns (Gradvall 2004; see also Fig. 1.1).

Discussion and Outlook Several explanations that may explain the prominent international role of Swedish music have been discussed in this chapter. The most researched topic is the Swedish music industry cluster, which is comprehensive and innovative and appears to be central to the Swedish success. At the same time, the music industry developed in a national cultural and political environment, much like other industries in Sweden did. Culturally, Anglo popular music was adopted early in Sweden, including the propensity to sing in the English language. Thus, in the post-ABBA period when the

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music industry globalized, Swedish artists were well positioned to find markets around the world. Politically, the provision of music-related services by the state and the nonprofit sector has most likely enabled talent to develop. However, these cultural and political factors are less covered in the research literature, perhaps because their level of importance is not easily quantifiable. Table 1.1 suggests that Sweden, together with Denmark and Great Britain, are especially well positioned among European countries to develop a successful music industry due to the existence of the right economic ingredients (e.g., sizeable, globalized, and technologically advanced industries). The table also suggests that some of the hypothesized cultural and political circumstances are also important. The other Nordic countries are culturally and economically similar to each other, so have they too excelled as centers of popular music? Less consistently than Sweden, but artists such as A-ha and Röyksopp from Norway, the Raveonettes and Aqua from Denmark, and various metal bands from Finland and Norway have had various degrees of international success. No comparative research has disentangled the reasons why Sweden’s neighbors have not been able to fully replicate the same level of musical prominence, but the answer may lie in the industrial cluster thesis and their lack of critical mass in music industry knowledge and infrastructure that has been built in Sweden. This is also true in the songwriting and production sector, with the exception of the immensely successful Norwegian duo Stargate (Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen). If there is another Nordic music miracle, it would be Iceland. With a population just north of 300,000, a remarkable burst of creativity produced artists like Björk, Sigur Rós, Of Monsters and Men, Kaleo, and others (see Prior 2015). In Iceland though, globally interconnected commercial songwriting and production is largely absent. As noted above, Swedish export music sales declined. This is partially a reflection of technological changes to the music industry, but a few additional points are worth making. First of all, we may have a small sample problem; international sales rely on a small number of artists. The oft-repeated story of how Roxette scored its first U.S. hit illustrates that chance plays an important role in success or failure. The band initially did well in Sweden, whereupon an American exchange student brought the single The Look back to the United States and put it in the hands of a local radio DJ, and the song spread from one radio station to the next, eventually reaching the top of the charts. Also, the music industry is affected by a certain herd mentality; in order not to be left behind when trends move at

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes

No No

Yes

No

No

No –

Source Adapted and translated from Forss (1999)

Yes

Denmark

No

Belgium

Yes Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No Yes

No

The Netherlands

No Yes

Yes

No

No

No No

Yes

Norway

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

No

Ireland

Preconditions for the development of an export music industry

Breadth of music education Extensive publishing Critical mass of companies International companies Production technology linkages Industry cooperation and strong institutions Anglo pop culture Role model—early export success

Table 1.1

No –

No

No

No

No No

No

Portugal

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

No

UK

No –

Yes

No

–

No No

Yes

Switzerland

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Yes

Sweden

20 O. JOHANSSON

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the speed of light, you copy the strategies of your competitors, including production teams with a recently proven track record, or sign artists from the latest hottest place with a perceived music scene. One day Portland, Oregon, the next day Stockholm, Sweden. After that…who knows? Thus, some fluctuations may be expected, but it is also possible that illegal downloading of music hit Sweden harder than other countries in the early 2000s. The basis for the argument is that individual broadband access in Sweden is among the highest in the world, which would allow for illegal downloading; with lower sales, it is harder for labels to support international marketing and subsequently exports dropped (Soltani 2004). The problem with this argument is that, according to Bernstein et al. (2007), music piracy did not appear to have been higher in Sweden compared to other developed countries. This confusion may be explained by the Spotify factor. Spotify is a Swedish-based, free (and legal) internet service of streaming music that dominated Swedish music listening before it quickly spread elsewhere. As the world moved toward streaming, Sweden lead the way. Finally, and from a long-term quite worrisome perspective, the hegemony of neoliberalism and the accompanying dismantling of the welfare state and its role in creating a fertile ground for Swedish music export must be addressed. During the days of ABBA, Sweden was a model welfare state with global ambitions and a successful export-oriented economy. The social safety net allowed people to pursue an otherwise risky career in music. The general affluence of Sweden allowed music consumption (and playing) to be one of the highest in the world on a per capita basis. The picture is different today. Music sales in Sweden are only average compared to other developed countries (The Economist 2011). Publicly supported music education has recently suffered from reduced funding. The municipal authorities that provide many of these services are cashstrapped, and the music industry does not have the capacity to invest in such musical infrastructure either (Persson and Lindström 2004). The people’s parks circuit has declined in importance, which is due mostly to the corporatization of the live music business. Small town music festivals have also folded. Public support for live scenes, rehearsal space, studios, and public music education is important, but when such support declines, can the talent develop as it has in the past? Facing this situation, the Swedish music industry has turned to other ways of engaging internationally rather than developing artists. It is hardly a coincidence that songwriting and production emerged, as the rights to

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music is more profitable than the sales of records. But before disentangling the songwriter–producer phenomenon in Chapters 3 and 4, there are a few theories that can help us contextualize the transformation of the Swedish music miracle.

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Gradvall, J., & Åkterman, L. A. (2017). Swedish pop exports. Stockholm: Sweden Institute. Hallencreutz, D., & Lundequist, P. (2001). Från Waterloo till virtuella visioner: Ett kulturperspektiv på svensk musikindustri.Tvärsnitt, 1. Hallencreutz, D., Lundequist, P., & Malmberg, A. (2004). Populärmusik från Svedala: näringspolitiska lärdomar av det svenska musikklustrets framväxt. Stockholm: SNS Förlag. Hartshorne, R. (2003). Svensk popmusik i USA: Från A till B och tillbaka. Artes: kvartalsskrift för konst, litteratur och musik, 29(3), 50–58. Hunt, C. (2017, January 31). 5 things you didn’t know about Max Martin. AXS. https://www.axs.com/5-things-you-didn-t-know-about-maxmartin-113887. Accessed June 12, 2017. Johansson, O. (2010). Beyond ABBA: The globalization of Swedish popular music. Focus on Geography, 53(4), 134–141. Johansson, O. (2013). Kent’s Sweden, or what a rock band can tell us about a nation. Fennia, 191(1), 40–57. Johansson, O., & Bell, T. L. (2009). Sound, society, and the geography of popular music. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Johansson, O., & Bell, T. L. (2014). Touring circuits and the geography of rock music performance. Popular Music and Society, 37 (4), 313–337. Johansson, O., Gripshover, M. M., & Bell, T. L. (2016). Landscapes of performance and technological change: Music venues in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Nashville, Tennessee. In B. J. Hracs, M. Seman, & T. Virani (Eds.), The production and consumption of music in the digital age (pp. 114–129). New York: Routledge. KK-stiftelsen. (2007). FUNK – förslag för att stimulera tillväxt i musikbranschen. Hultsfred: Mötesplats Rock City. Lofthus, K. (2002). International appetite for Swedish pop boosts STIM revenue. Billboard, 114(26), 55. Löwstedt, A., Alexandersson, P., Gruvberg, U., Schöijer, S., & Wermelin, S. (2001). Livet är en fest. Stockholm: Ordfront förlag. Lundequist, P., & Hallencreutz, D. (2003). Are They only in it for the money? Subsidiary strategy and impact on local clusters in the recorded music industry: The case of Sweden. In D. Power (Ed.), Behind the music—Profiting from sound: A systems approach to the dynamics of Nordic music industry. Oslo: Nordic Industrial Fund. Mattmar, U. (2013, February 11). Sverige världsledande på hitlåtar. SVT Nyheter. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/sverige-varldsledande-pahitlatar. Accessed June 16, 2017. Merriam-Webster. (2019). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ miracle. Accessed March 30, 2019.

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Musiksverige. (2016). Musikbranschen i siffror: Statistik för 2016. https:// statistik2016.musiksverige.org/. Accessed May 14, 2018. Nylöf, G. (1990). Trends in popular music preferences in Sweden 1960–1988. In K. Roe (Ed.), Popular music research: An anthology from NORDICOMSweden. Nordic Documentation Center for Mass Communication Research: Göteborg. Palm, C. M. (2008). ABBA—The story. Stockholm: Wahlström och Widstrand. Persson, P., & Lindström, H. (2004). Levande musik. In Respekt för rötter – musik och kulturföreningars betydelse för svenskt musikliv. Slite: Wessmans musikförlag. Porter, M. (1990). The competitive advantage of nations. London: Macmillan. Power, D. (Ed.). (2003). Behind the music—Profiting from sound: A systems approach to the dynamics of Nordic music industry. Oslo: Nordic Industrial Fund. Prior, N. (2015). ‘It’s a social thing, not a nature thing’: Popular music practices in Reykjavík, Iceland. Cultural Sociology, 9(1), 81–98. Sander, G. (2001). The new Swedish pop boom. Scandinavian Review, 88(3), 28–40. Sandgren, P. (2000). Varför är svensk popmusik så populär utomlands? STM-Online, vol. 3. http://www.musikforskning.se/stmonline/index-en. php?menu=3. Accessed July 15, 2010. Seabrook, J. (2015). The song machine: Inside the hit factory. New York: Norton. Soltani, S. (2004, November 20). Swedes set for northern exposure. Music Week. Sölvell, Ö., Zander, I., & Porter, M. (1992). Advantage Sweden. Houndmills, UK: Macmillan. STIM-nytt. (1997). MIDEM i Cannes – den svenska musikens marknadsplats 12(1), 8–11. Sveriges Utbildningsradio. (2016). Max Martin master class: Episode in series UR Samtiden—Polarprissamtal 2016. http://urskola.se/Produkter/196363-URSamtiden-Polarprissamtal-2016-Max-Martin-master-class. Accessed April 23, 2017. TV4 Play. (2016, October 2). Max Martin vinner Polarpriset – se mäktiga hyllningen från världsartisterna [video file]. https://www.tv4.se/nyheterna/ klipp/max-martin-vinner-polarpriset-se-m%C3%A4ktiga-hyllningen-fr%C3% A5n-v%C3%A4rldsartisterna-3288855. Accessed July 27, 2018. Ward, S. (2003). Export music Sweden. In H. Elmquist (Ed.), Det svenska musikundret: från Winter till vår tid. Ekerlids förlag: Stockholm. Wikström, P. (2013). The music industry (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

CHAPTER 2

Local Music in a Global Network: Circulation, Reputation, and Hybridity

Abstract This chapter positions Swedish music as a central space within the global system using three interrelated theoretical perspectives: circulation, reputation, and hybridity. First, Sweden is well positioned to take advantage of cultural knowledge that circulates in the production of global popular music. The second element of success is the acquisition of reputational capital among songwriters and producers, which is dependent on both concrete commercial accomplishments and the discursive powers of being associated with the well-known Swedish pop phenomenon. Thirdly, from the perspective of cultural hybridity, Swedish pop music incorporates both local and global cultural expressions. Keywords Cultural globalization · Circulation of music · Cultural industries · Reputation · Buzz · Cultural hybridity

Circulation This section theorizes the process of globalization, the role of culture and cultural industries in a globalized world, and specifically how popular music circulates among places.

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Globalization and the Cultural Industries Globalization intensified during the late twentieth century in many different ways—increasing trade, migration, the integration of political institutions, the dissemination of globalized culture, and so on. To understand these processes, scholars applied a network perspective on the spatial organization of globalization (e.g., Castells 1996). In a networked society, some places are important as hubs with strong communication infrastructure and the ability to attract key industries and people. New York City, London, and Los Angeles are commonly recognized as top-tier world cities in this global system, not just as centers of economic power but also global popular culture. Information flows between these dominant places, as well as to other interconnected places. However, pop music has diffused primarily within the Anglo-American world, and regions such as northwestern Europe. Globalization still encounters significant “friction” through variegated local cultures and tastes, resulting in “incomplete” globalization (Connell and Gibson 2003). Of utmost importance is also the construction of knowledge on the local level. Geographers have for a long time stressed the formation of agglomerations—clusters of activity that are dependent on local skills, local social and physical infrastructure, and face-to-face interaction between local actors. In the case of music, Connell and Gibson (2003) acknowledge the dichotomy between the flow of music between places and place-based forces that shape music locally, which they conceptualize as fluidity versus fixity. On the one hand people and musical influences are mobile, while on the other hand music can also be rooted in distinctly local cultures. As evident in Chapters 3 and 4, songwriting and production endeavors in the music industry are dependent on both the local milieu and networks that are translocal in character. Global culture is not just an ancillary activity or a residual outcome of the globalization process. Waters (1995) writes that “the globalization of human society is contingent on the extent to which cultural arrangements are effective relative to economic and political arrangements” (p. 9). Therefore, capital accumulation in a wide variety of economic sectors is dependent on cultural globalization. Obvious examples are different forms of branded consumption, such as Starbucks and MacDonald’s, as well as the cultural industries. In fact, culture is an important economic development tool, what Yudice (2003) calls the culturalization of the economy. However, the growing economic importance of culture is

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contested. Opinions range from a positive, neoliberal perspective to those who see a dark side to the commodification of culture. For example, while the cultural economy is a driver of economic growth, yet, paradoxically, for a majority of cultural producers, such as musicians, profits are negligible (de Beukelaer and Spence 2019). What constitutes the cultural industries is not easy to define but may include the arts, media, design, science, and culture. In fact, to encompass such a broad spectrum of activities, the term creative industries is also used. In either case, some form of creative labor is the key ingredient within this economy, accompanied by innovation, the production of “symbolic messages” rather than purely utilitarian goods and services, and the importance intellectual property rights (Flew 2013). The British National Endowment for Sciences, Technology, and the Arts suggests that the cultural/creative industries can be divided into three categories: creative content (e.g., film, television, and recorded music), creative experiences (e.g., tourism and performances), and creative services (e.g., advertising and architecture) (NESTA 2006). No matter how the cultural and creative industries are defined, though, songwriting and music production are included. The cultural and creative industries make up an estimated 7% of the global economy (Flew 2013). Sweden is the 16th largest exporter of creative goods and services, although Swedish exports in the creative sector declined to 3.5 billion USD in 2014 from a peak of 5 trillion USD in 2008 (UNCTAD 2018). This economic impact is recognized by countries and cities when they formulate cultural policies. The spatial logic of the cultural and creative industries is that on the one hand centripetal forces create localized clusters, but at the same time centrifugal forces are at work as industries spread geographically to conquer new markets, which opens up space for competing clusters (Flew 2013). The agglomeration effect means that the cultural and creative industries are especially important to urban economies (Currid 2007). Cities therefore attempt to foster, often with limited success, local cultural economy cluster development, including music scenes (Frith et al. 2009). Every place is positioned differently with regard to their capacity to partake in the cultural industries, which can open up possibilities or constraints for global interactions. The term glocalization captures the idea that a basic set of global processes are at work everywhere, but they have place-specific outcomes (Swyngedouw 2004). The infrastructure and knowledge that has accumulated in the Swedish music industry

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over several decades, especially in Stockholm, makes it a significant cultural resource and a distinctly glocalized outcome. The flow of cultural information primarily takes place through media (Morley and Robins 1995). So-called “mediascapes” transmit popular culture across space (Appadurai 1996). Mediascapes are the perceptions that people hold about different phenomena and different places, based on the circulation of information that is disseminated electronically through movies, television, advertising, social media, and internet sites like YouTube. Partly in recognition of the importance of mediascapes, research data presented in Chapters 3 and 4 are largely derived from media sources. Theories of Circulation The flows of culture in global networks and through mediascapes are not unidirectional—traveling from one place of origin to a destination—nor are they discrete, as single spatial transfers of information between two nodes. Instead, it is useful to conceptualize the flow of culture through the lens of circulation (Lee and LiPuma 2002). For example, in the case of music, cultural geographers traditionally identified geographic origins of music (e.g., rock and roll in Memphis; see Ford 1971) where specific local social and economic conditions allowed for the transformation of folk culture into popular culture. In diffusion, styles of music have a starting point—a “hearth”—and then they spread elsewhere in the world in a way that can be traced over time and space. However, contemporary pop music is far away—temporally and stylistically—from its original influences, whether they are rock, soul, jazz, or elements of other musical traditions. Modernity eroded tradition through industrialization, urbanization, migration, and ultimately the mass production and consumption of culture. Therefore, it is now useful to think about the spread of culture through circulation where forms of cultural practices “touch down” in certain places, where they thrive and are reshaped, and eventually circulate elsewhere. Deemphasizing linear abstractions with clearly demarcated starting points and end points, culture in circulation does not “belong” to the United States, Great Britain, Sweden, or any other place. Within these networks of circulation, place-based input continuously influences the circulatory system through “feedback loops.” A standard definition of feedback (from Merriam-Webster’s dictionary) is “the return

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to the input of part of the output of a machine, system, or process.”1 Feedback, as an element of circulation, not only rejects the perspective of directional flow of information and culture but also implies a dialectic process where output is always connected to input. One can think of this as a form of recycling, which is usually understood as a flow of material in a physical sense, but as the reader might know, it is also common to say that styles of music are being recycled. How is this process of circulation “controlled”? According to Gracyk (1996), an artist’s creativity is based on historically or spatially situated cultural conventions. Certain sounds or aesthetic qualities are recognized by songwriters and artists as embedded with meaning. This can be the arrangement of sounds with regard to instrumentation, vocal patterns, and harmonies. Then a new piece of music sets in motion a new trajectory on how it is received and understood in a particular cultural moment. This understanding is dependent on a string of complex interactions in media and society. The songwriter must consciously and subconsciously wade through this thicket of sonic options to be able to continuously find the right elements in order to be successful. In pop music, record labels and artists’ management interact with songwriters, and they are all nodes in a larger circulatory system. Ultimately, according to Fairchild (2008), music acquires meaning when it is consumed by the listening audience, the last step in the production and consumption chain. Consumers’ response to music can be unpredictable, but the meaning (and success) of music is inevitably a mix of individual taste preferences and music industry production choices. A significant contribution to the understanding of music circulation is David Novak’s book Japanoise (2013), which compares the development of the musical style noise in two different locations, Japan and the United States. Novak concludes that the aesthetic development of the genre was tied to cycles of mediation between the two places, that centers in the circulatory system tend to shift over time, and that ultimately noise “could only exist in circulation” (p. 6). Much like the writing and production of pop songs, the noise genre is a transnational musical community but there are also obvious differences. Swedish writer–producers exist as part of the commercial center of music circulation rather than the periphery. 1 In music, feedback is also a sonic concept where audio input from a microphone or an instrument interacts with audio output, such as a loudspeaker, creating an unwanted (or, in some cases, a desirable) noise effect.

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In Japanoise, Novak focuses a great deal on the consumption side and music scenes, while my perspective is predominantly industry-oriented. A critical view on music circulation recognizes that it reproduces dominant cultural forces at the expense of minority culture. Global circulation makes distinct national cultures hard to identify. A cultural practice like new pop music tends to come from places that are privileged in the network. Moreover, circulation also takes place at an ever-increasing speed. Speed not only puts pressure on the actors in a network to be able to absorb knowledge more quickly than ever before, but “with an ever quickening turn over time, objects as well as cultural artefacts becomes disposable and depleted of meaning” (Lash and Urry 1987, p. 10). As Japanoise concludes though, these perspectives should be balanced by the fact that circulation gives rise to hybrid cultures, which can be as authentic as traditional national cultures. When music that originated in one place is reworked somewhere else in a different cultural context, it becomes “indigenized” (Stratton 2010). Carosso (2013) uses the example of American blues being adopted by working-class British youth, but with its rhythms simplified and with a greater emphasis on melody. This adaptation also made blues more relatable to white America and circulated back to the United States as the so-called British Invasion of the 1960s. Today, when listeners can stream an endless amount of music, circulation may be more thorough and swift than in the past.

Reputation Returning to the recording process, let’s assume that the best songs are selected to be included on a new album and that the best writer–producer is hired to work with an artist. But even if it is possible for industry insiders to identify the best(selling) song in advance,2 such a narrow approach to a social process underestimates the importance of networks and personal connections in the music industry. More specifically, I will focus on how reputation acts as a gatekeeper in terms of who gets to do what. It is crucial for an individual to develop reputation in order to rise to a prominent position within the network of global pop music. The acquisition of

2 The method of “hit song science” is in use in the music industry, which attempts to predict whether a song will be a hit prior to its distribution, using automated means, such as machine learning software.

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a (positive) reputation means that a person is offered more opportunities as a songwriter and producer. The notion of reputation is only tangentially used in human geography, so instead I draw primarily from the business management literature. A related concept—buzz—will also be incorporated into the discussion about reputation. The word reputation is commonly used in daily language and defined (by the Merriam-Webster dictionary) as the “overall quality or character [of a person] as seen or judged by people in general” or more broadly “a place in public esteem or regard: good name.” People often assert that they know somebody “by reputation,” which implies that reputation is primarily acquired through social mechanisms other than face-to-face contact. Social psychologist Bromley (1993) also points out that things, not just people, can have reputation, and reformulate a definition of reputation as “all the opinions expressed about an entity in a community” (p. 16). Moreover, Bromley states that reputation can be both positive and negative and that it can be “real” or not. In either case, it is often so that reputation itself can cause something to occur rather than just the actions of the person/entity itself. From a geographic perspective, Johannes Glückler has incorporated the notion of reputation (see also Glückler and Armbrüster 2003). He writes, “the better a city is connected to other cities in a city network, the higher the propensity for local firms to be referred to business opportunities in other places” (2007, p. 950). Here, the reputation of firms is intrinsically connected to the reputation of location. Moreover, “reputation is networked when new contacts learn about each other’s reputation through joint trusted contacts within their social network. If a consultant is referred to a remote client through a mutual contact, the client will be more likely to assign this consultant” (p. 953). Therefore, reputation is enhanced by location in relative space; that is, in a network economy some places are situated more centrally and can forge stronger nonlocal connections that other places can. It may be possible to manage a reputation, which is a central concern in the business literature. A leading proponent of the management perspective is Charles Fombrun. As the chair of the Reputation Institute and one of the leaders in reputation research, he fleshed out his research in the book Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image (1996).

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Since 1997, there is also a journal on the topic, the Corporate Reputation Review. Fombrun (1996) defines reputation as “a collective representation of the firm’s past actions and results that describe the firm’s ability to deliver valued outcomes to multiple stakeholders” (p. 72). This definition is intended to be applicable to firms; however, it may be used in a modified way to explore the reputational features of songwriter– producers. “Firm” in Fombrun’s definition translates into a songwriter– producer, a writing and production collective, or a production company. A songwriter–producer is very much an economic actor in a way that the reputation definition suggests. The “stakeholders” are artists, their managers, and record labels. The management perspective on reputation comes from a different intellectual tradition than circulation and cultural hybridity, which are derived from theories of globalization. Are they compatible? As evident below, reputation theory acknowledges the social construction of reputation, either through circulation of information within networks or through media; therefore, these perspectives do work well together. The reputation definition above is also suitable for exploring the writer–producer phenomenon as “past actions and results” capture the tendency for a writer–producer to be evaluated by his or her (latest) hits, and “deliver valued outcomes” is easily measured by record sales and chart positions. The importance of “collective representation” means that perceptions are held by a group of interacting stakeholders (i.e., music industry insiders who quite often know each other), as a result of information exchanges among themselves, through media, and as an outcome of the writer–producers’ track record. Drawing from Fombrun (2012), where he augments his 1996 definition, reputation is also relational as it is an assessment of a writer–producer’s attractiveness to economic actors in the music industry relative to other writer–producers with which he or she competes. Using insights from The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Reputation (Barnett and Pollock 2012), especially contributions from Rindova and Martins (2012), Fombrun (2012), Noe (2012), and Jensen et al. (2012) shed light on how reputation can be understood in the context of pop music. These scholars suggest that reputation originates from three different sources, or from the interactions among them. They are (1) the personal experience of stakeholders, (2) initiatives by the songwriters and producers, or (3) intermediary actors other than writer–producers or stakeholders.

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(1) Reputation is a signal from stakeholders’ observations of the work of writers–producers, which may reveal attributes that the stakeholders find desirable. Ideally, a stakeholder’s evaluation results in the perception of quality work. A stakeholder’s perception is used to predict the characteristics of future work by the writer–producer. (2) According to the idea of “signaling-impression,” the writer–producer engages in efforts to influence the stakeholders. Through communicative efforts, the writer–producer aims to develop a high-status position, which is done by conforming to social norms that exist within the industry. The writer– producer can also stress the resources at his or her disposal; for example, being part of a network of creative individuals that can be tapped into, or being situated in a particular creative space. To have access to such resources can make you more competitive. The writer–producer can then engage in transactions at more favorable terms. (3) Reputation also involves information exchanges among stakeholders in a networked field. Especially the density of social networks has an impact on reputation (Bromley 1993). Density has to do with whether network members interact frequently or not. Strongly interconnected and tight-knit networks tend to develop common norms, which leads to convergence of attitudes and opinions. It is important to maintain reputation within the network because it creates trust. Trust comes from partners expending time, money, and effort in building a relationship. These “sunk” costs indicate a willingness to embark on repeated relationships. Stakeholders have collective institutions that influence reputation. In the business world, publications such as Fortune magazine with various corporate rankings on different aspects of reputation—best places to work, best business school, and so on—carry some weight. Such institutional actors codify reputation. Music media engage, to some extent, in such evaluations. Of great importance for reputation is of course how successful previous songs have been. This can be measured by the charts, which in the United States are dominated by Billboard and its methods of ranking album and song success. How do new criteria emerge on which reputation is based? This is an important consideration as new musical styles and sounds develop at a rapid pace, more so than the character and quality of goods and services in most other economic sectors. On the one hand, corporations prefer low risk and predictability. That means reputation is mostly based on past performance. If you can replicate recent success, reputation is enhanced. On the other hand, the entrepreneurial side of capitalism is based on high

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risk and high rewards. From that perspective, reputation is associated with the future potential to capture new trends, although they are notoriously hard to predict in music. New commonly accepted criteria for what is reputation-enhancing continuously evolve as musical trends develop. Not being able to quickly internalize such criteria may lead to reputational losses for a writer-producer. Such reputational losses are based on stigma, which is a negative association with a particular attribute, such as the inability to absorb a new trend. Reputation built on past performance is a problem for new actors. Petkova (2012) suggests three strategies which are pertinent to the role of new writer–producers in the music industry. First there is reputation borrowing, which is reputation through affiliation with another actor in high social standing. The prestigious actor has positive reputational attributes, so affiliation is an endorsement that signifies quality, or at least potential. A second method is reputation building. Independently, a small firm can devise new strategies that highlight innovation and new products. That is key in the music industry, which is characterized, as noted, by continuously evolving styles and sounds. Being a small actor can legitimize a firm; it is not a “staid” big company. Initially, the innovative approach tends to be geared toward small markets as most new investments are based on the tried-and-true; i.e., what types of songs sold well in the immediate past. But if successful, reputation builds from a small customer base, often local, and expands over time, which often means geographic expansion. The third method is reputation by endowment. Individuals with a new firm may have accumulated reputation elsewhere before breaking off to start their own business. Such is the case in the music industry when writer– producers start new production companies after initially having gained experience and reputation elsewhere. Buzz Buzz is a concept that supplements reputation. First used by Bathelt et al. (2004) and Storper and Venables (2004), buzz codifies a longrecognized phenomenon, namely the tendency for information to flow between actors in informal settings and through informal means. These include after-hour social meetings and serendipitous encounters in industry spaces where gossip, rumors, news, and recommendations about the latest industry developments. “The nature of buzz is spontaneous and fluid” (p. 38) according to Bathelt et al. (2004). Usually this takes place

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locally through face-to-face interactions, although some have argued that global buzz and virtual buzz are also possible (Asheim et al. 2007). Some translocal spaces for the exchange of buzz include conferences, festivals, and industry trade fairs (Schuldt and Bathelt 2011). Information transferred through buzz is considered especially important in the creative industries (Mould and Joel 2010) where “having the finger on the pulse” is crucial. Moreover, buzz is important in work that is characterized by short-term projects; in this case, the production of a song or an album. In the music industry, the topics of buzz exchanges could be emerging new artists, trends on stylistic changes in pop music, the contribution of specific writer–producers to such trends, and the relative reputational increase and decrease of writers–producers based on how well they can capture the zeitgeist in terms of sound and style in pop music.

Hybridity Introduction to Cultural Hybridity Pop music is often imagined as a homogenous product devoid of any local content. However, many reject this perspective as too simplified (e.g., aforementioned Novak 2013). Instead, pop music can be a hybrid form of culture that incorporates multiple transnational aesthetics, or be a reaction against globalization and instead a turn toward local culture. While circulation and reputation situate the production of Swedish pop music within the global music industry, the cultural hybridity perspective—which can be understood as the mixing of cultures in an increasingly globalized world—emphasizes the content of the music. The concept of hybridity is adopted from biology and originally refers to the cross-fertilization of plants or animals. In the social sciences, hybridity is the process and the result of the flow of people and culture. Therefore, hybridity exists in a spatial context, but it is usually understood as an aesthetic phenomenon in which cultural expression changes. According to Lagerkvist (2001), there are three types of cultural hybridity. The first type is when distinct phenomena are mixed and give rise to something entirely new. This interpretation is close to the original biological concept of the emergence of new species. The second type consists of a mixture of different phenomena resulting in content change but similarities with the origin are still evident (e.g., a Creole language). The third case is when already blended cultural phenomena are once again

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subjected to mixing. This third, and more “circular” perspective, is especially applicable to understanding today’s global popular culture. Historically, music scholars tried to find authentic music untouched by modernization, often in remote areas, in order to identify an original national culture (see, for example, Gold and Revill 2006). Such folk music represents an unchanging essence of a primordial culture, according to this essentialist vision of music. Most research today, in contrast, stress that local and national cultures are not, and never really were, homogeneous or autonomous. Cultural formation is a complex, hybrid process with continuous impulses among places and cultures (Connell and Gibson 2003). In an era of postcolonial migration and economic globalization, music demonstrates geographical and cultural mobility, leading to different forms of hybridity (Kraidy 2005). Immigration from the periphery to global economic and political power centers spread music to new places. In a new spatial context, the content and meaning of music changes (Aparicio and Jaquez 2003; Pacini Hernandez 2009). Western musicians may travel to the periphery and use other cultures’ music, not only as a source of inspiration but also for their own commercial purposes, which may be viewed as musical neocolonialism—white artists taking advantage of the “raw material” of others (see for example Nexica [1997] on Paul Simon’s Graceland and Wyndham and Read [2003] on Ry Cooder’s Buena Vista Social Club). At the same time, Weiss (2008) has shown that many interpretations are possible; what is perceived as colonial theft by some can also be understood as legitimate and enriching exchanges of culture. The process of circulation that produces hybridity can be complex. Take for example the case of rap and hip-hop. Rap as a vocal style was inspired by different elements in African-American culture, possibly with African and Jamaican antecedents (Graves 2009). Hip-hop and rap have further hybridized into rap-rock performed by white artists such as Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit (Middleton and Beebe 2002) and even country rap, a.k.a. “hick-hop” (Morris 2011). Then there are minorities and immigrant groups beyond the United States who have adopted hip-hop and its “bottom-up” perspectives and incorporated their own experiences and musical traditions. Immigrant hip-hop has a strong position in the European suburbs where people from different parts of the world come together and share new experiences. This seems to contradict globalized culture as a placeless and exclusively commercial phenomenon (see

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Adorno 2002). For artists, hybridity can be a tool where merging disparate cultural expressions help their creativity and ability to understand their own multifaceted social reality (Lau 2007; Jocson 2006). On the consumption side, Grossberg (2002) suggests that the listening of popular music has become eclectic. Boundaries between genres are routinely transgressed. More and more people are interested in different musical styles, and in this context new forms of hybrid music develop. Especially as the consumption of music has moved from vinyl albums and CDs, which commonly contained the music of only one artist, to webbased streaming, the pattern of “playlist listening” exposes the listener to a greater level of musical variety. What Is Swedish Music? How can hybridity be identified in Swedish pop music? Before addressing that question, it is necessary to first identify what is “typically” Swedish in Swedish popular music. Larsen (1993) suggests that Swedishness may be a combination of features of the music itself, perceptions among the listeners, and nonmusical phenomenon such as associations between music and place that are made in a societal context. Further, Lilliestam (1993) proposes that for music to be perceived as Swedish it must convey meanings that can only be fully understood in the context of Swedish culture, have a style that is strongly associated with Sweden, or that it is “ideologically” Swedish; i.e., seeking to create a Swedish cultural identity. Music is typically perceived as Swedish if it includes the following (based on Lilliestam [1998] and Löwstedt et al. [2001]): • Lyrics in Swedish. • References to Swedish conditions, events, people, and places. • A tonality and “mood” that includes melancholy, wistfulness, and minor key. • Swedish folk music, often emphasizing accordion- and fiddlebased instrumentation, or the visa tradition, which is a domestic singer/songwriter style of music. • Nature themes and rural romanticism, often including coastal and forest imagery. • A schlager tradition with straightforward and melodic pop songs. (Schlager is a term used for post-WWII pan-European popular music that existed semi-independently of Anglo-American-based pop.)

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Swedish Music as Local–Global Hybrid In Johansson (2012) I explored what forms of hybridity are evident in Swedish music, using a number of artists from the Swedish Music Miracle 1.0 (predominantly rock bands rather than pop artists). That article— based on a content analysis of articles from the Swedish music press— concluded that Swedish popular music is a hybrid with musical influences that are mainly global, while the music is shaped locally. Local forces include the artists’ early life experience and family background, such as the music that was popular in the household and among friends; the character of the local music scenes from which they emerged and, more broadly, the cultural attributes of that place (e.g., culturally homogenous/heterogeneous or economically thriving/deindustrializing); and eventually the recording and production process, involving existing technology and the influence of specific actors, such as producers. Whether or not an artist’s music is considered distinctly Swedish is also contingent upon the listeners’ understanding on what constitutes Swedishness in terms of musical styles and lyrics and other elements in the music, which may signal some form of national belonging. Furthermore, many Swedish artists use extra-musical associations to gain authenticity through discursive place attachment. Examples include artists’ clothing that indicate support of a local sports team or the use of hometown homages in album cover art. Such mechanisms are well understood by a domestic audience. Of course, international audiences may very well enjoy such music even if they do not absorb all cultural references. The opposite is evident through globalization discourses that surrounded several Swedish artists—international record contracts and recordings in London or Los Angeles result in undesirable musical changes interpreted among listeners and the media as a shift toward a placeless (or “Americanized”) music idiom, thus representing a form of negative hybridization. At the same time, a reading of how Swedish music was perceived in Sweden compared to international observers illustrates a diversity of interpretations and discourses. What is considered Swedish depends on different perspectives on what constitutes national identity, meaning that hybridity is a relative phenomenon. Other, often unresolved, issues that arose in Johansson (2012) include whether music must incorporate older Swedish musical traditions or if it is enough that a number of contemporary Swedish artists exhibit distinct musical similarities for that to be considered a Swedish style? Or perhaps the Swedish tendency to quickly

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embrace global trends in itself is a form of hybridity? As Connell and Gibson (2003) note, music associated with a specific nation is socially constructed and constantly in the process of “becoming.” From this perspective, Swedish music exists as an ever-changing hybrid in global, circular networks. Chapter 4 will explore the pop music of contemporary Swedish songwriters–producers using a hybridity framework.

References Adorno, T. W. (2002). Essays on music (S. Gillespie, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press. Aparicio, F., & Jaquez, C. (Eds.). (2003). Musical migrations: Transnationalism and cultural hybridity in Latin/o America (Vol. 1). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Asheim, B. T., Coenen, L., & Vang, J. (2007). Face-to-face, buzz, and knowledge bases: Sociospatial implications for learning, innovation, and innovation policy. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 25, 655–670. Barnett, M., & Pollock, T. (2012). The Oxford handbook of corporate reputation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bathelt, H., Malmberg, A., & Maskall, P. (2004). Clusters and knowledge: Local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation. Progress in Human Geography, 28, 31–56. Bromley, D. B. (1993). Reputation, image, and impression management. Chichester, UK: Wiley. Carosso, A. (2013). The paradox of re-colonization: The British invasion of American music and the birth of modern rock. In G. Kosc, C. Juncker, S. Monteith, & B. Waldschmidt-Nelson (Eds.), The transatlantic sixties. Transcript: Verlag. Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Connell, J., & Gibson, C. (2003). Sound tracks: Popular music, identity and place. London: Routledge. Currid, E. (2007). The Warhol economy: How fashion, art and music drive New York City. Princeton: University Press. de Beukelaer, C., & Spence, K.-M. (2019). Global cultural economy. London: Routledge. Fairchild, C. (2008). Pop idols and pirates. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Flew, T. (2013). Global creative industries. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Fombrun, C. J. (1996). Reputation: Realizing value from the corporate image. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

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Fombrun, C. J. (2012). The building blocks of corporate reputation: Definitions, antecedents, consequences. In M. Barnett & T. Pollock (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate reputation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ford, L. (1971). Geographic factors in the origin, evolution, and diffusion of rock and roll music. Journal of Geography, 70(8), 455–464. Frith, S., Cloonan, M., & Williamson, J. (2009). On music as a creative industry. In A. Pratt & P. Jeffcutt (Eds.), Creativity, innovation and the cultural economy. London: Routledge. Gold, J., & Revill, G. (2006). Gathering the voices of the people? Cecil sharp, cultural hybridity, and the folk music of Appalachia. GeoJournal, 65, 55–66. Gracyk, T. (1996). Rhythm and noise: An aesthetics of rock. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Graves, S. (2009). Hip hop: A postmodern folk music. In O. Johansson & T. L. Bell (Eds.), Sound, society and the geography of popular music. Farnham: Ashgate. Grossberg, L. (2002). Reflections of a disappointed popular music scholar. In R. Beebe, et al. (Eds.), Rock over the edge: Transformations of popular music. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Glückler, J. (2007). Geography of reputation: The city as the locus of business opportunity. Regional Studies, 41(7), 949–961. Glückler, J., & Armbrüster, T. (2003). Bridging uncertainty in management consulting: The mechanisms of trust and networked reputation. Organization Studies, 24, 269–297. Jensen, M., Kim, H., & Kim, B. K. (2012). Meeting expectations: A roletheoretic perspective on reputation. In M. Barnett & T. Pollock (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate reputation. Oxford: University Press. Jocson, K. (2006). ‘Bob Dylan and hip hop’: Intersecting literacy practices in youth poetry communities. Written Communication, 23(3), 231–259. Johansson, O. (2012). Svensk rockmusik – en hybrid i världen. STM-Online: The Swedish Journal of Musicology Online, 15. http://musikforskning.se/ stmonline/vol_15/johansson/index.php?menu=3. Kraidy, M. (2005). Hybridity, or the cultural logic of globalization. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Lagerkvist, E. (2001). Från kulturimperialism till hybriditet: en översikt över teorier och literatur om kulturspridning. Stockholm: Arbetslivsinstitutet. Larsen, H. (1993). I sökandet efter en svensk musikalisk mentalitet. In H. Larsen (red.) Svenskhet i musiken, Skrifter från Musikvetenskapliga institutionen nr 7. Stockholm: Stockholms Universitet. Lash, S., & Urry, J. (1987). The end of organized capitalism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Lau, F. (2007). Context, agency and Chineseness: The music of Law Wing Fai. Contemporary Music Review, 26(5–6), 585–603.

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Lee, B., & LiPuma, E. (2002). Cultures of circulation: The imaginations of modernity. Public Culture, 14(1), 191–213. Lilliestam, L. (1993). Svensk musik – musik och svenskhet. In H. Larsen (red.), Svenskhet i musiken, Skrifter från Musikvetenskapliga institutionen nr 7. Stockholm: Stockholms Universitet. Lilliestam, L. (1998). Svensk rock: Musik, lyrik, historik. Göteborg: Ejeby. Löwstedt, A., Alexandersson, P., Gruvberg, U., Schöijer, S., & Wermelin, S. (2001). Livet är en fest. Stockholm: Ordfront förlag. Middleton, J., & Beebe, R. (2002). The racial politics of hybridity and ‘neoeclecticism’ in contemporary popular music. Popular Music, 21(2), 159–172. Morley, D., & Robins, K. (1995). Spaces of identity. New York: Routledge. Morris, D. (2011). Hick-Hop Hooray? “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”, musical genre, and the misrecognitions of hybridity. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 28(5), 466–488. Mould, O., & Joel, S. (2010). Knowledge networks of ‘buzz’ in London’s advertising industry: A social network analysis approach. Area, 42(3), 281–292. NESTA. (2006). Creating value: How can the UK invest in new creative businesses. London: National Endowment for Sciences, Technology, and the Arts. Nexica, I. (1997). Music marketing: Tropes of hybrids, crossovers, and cultural dialogue through music. Popular Music and Society, 21(3), 61–82. Noe, T. (2012). A survey of the economic theory of reputation: Its logic and limits. In M. Barnett & T. Pollock (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate reputation. Oxford: University Press. Novak, D. (2013). Japanoise: Music at the edge of circulation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Pacini Hernandez, D. (2009). Oye Como Va!: Hybridity and identity in Latino popular music. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Petkova, A. (2012). From the ground up: Building young firm’s reputations. In M. Barnett & T. Pollock (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate reputation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rindova, V., & Martins, L. (2012). Show me the money: A multidimensional perspective on reputation as an intangible asset. In M. Barnett & T. Pollock (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate reputation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schuldt, N., & Bathelt, H. (2011). International trade fairs and global buzz, part II: practices of global buzz. European Planning Studies, 19, 1–22. Storper, M., & Venables, A. (2004). Buzz: Face-to-face contact and the urban economy. Journal of Economic Geography, 4, 351–370. Stratton, J. (2010). Englishing popular music in the 1960s. In A. Bennett & J. Stratton (Eds.), Britpop and the English music tradition. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Swyngedouw, E. (2004). Glocalisation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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UNCTAD. (2018). Creative economy outlook 2005–2014: Trends in international trade in creative industries; Country profiles 2002–2015. United Nations. https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2018d3_en.pdf. Accessed July 30, 2019. Waters, M. (1995). Globalization. New York: Routledge. Weiss, S. (2008). Permeable boundaries: Hybridity, music, and the reception of Robert Wilson’s I La Galigo. Ethnomusicology, 52(2), 203–239. Wyndham, M., & Read, P. (2003). Buena Vista Social Club: Local meets global and lives happily ever after. Cultural Geographies, 10, 498–503. Yudice, G. (2003). The expediency of culture: Uses of culture in the global era. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

CHAPTER 3

The Main Players

Abstract This chapter investigates the most important actors of the Swedish Music Miracle 2.0. The objective is to unveil the music networks of leading Swedish writer–producers. How did they rise to prominence within the global music industry? How have they collaborated among themselves and with other actors outside Sweden? These connections can both be artistic in nature—the creative process of writing and producing songs—as well as professional connections with other actors in the music industry. Keywords Reputation · Music industry actors · Personal networks · Swedish culture · Stockholm · Los Angeles

In this chapter, the analysis of the Swedish writing–production cluster is informed by the ideas of circulation and reputation from Chapter 2. Data on how the personal contacts of Swedish writers–producers resulted in popular songs makes circulation concrete. How and why the Swedes have been contracted to produce global pop hits exemplify the concept of reputation. To unpack these processes, we also need to understand the contemporary music industry. This chapter will therefore also explore songwriting and how space plays a role in that process. Advanced communication technologies certainly affect patterns of work in the music industry, although the need for proximity among actors is strong, which is provided in places like Stockholm and Los Angeles. Particularly the role © The Author(s) 2020 O. Johansson, Songs from Sweden, Geographies of Media, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2736-4_3

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of Stockholm as a node in the global music industry network is emphasized. The question “How did this songwriting and production cluster in Stockholm come to be?” is important as an introduction to this chapter but ultimately, the central question is, “How has the cluster been reproduced over a significant period of time?”

Method To dissect the Swedish Music Miracle 2.0, data material on how Swedish writer–producers fit into the world of pop music must be obtained. There are two possible choices: interviews with the individuals in question or media texts. The advantage of interviews is the possibility to formulate questions directly relevant to the research objective. In this case, however, many of the key informants are notoriously hesitant to grant interviews, and conducting interviews would pose a significant logistical challenge considering the global distribution of the interviewees. The advantage of media material is its accessibility. There are drawbacks to relying on secondary accounts, but the abundance of material allows for the reconstruction of relevant events, social processes, and networks in a way that probably equals the interview method. Therefore, the data set is mostly feature-length articles from music journals and newspapers, especially those based on interviews with selected writer–producers. A secondary reason for using media texts is that they are central to the social construction of reputation and the circulation of knowledge about music. The next consideration was to determine which Swedish writer– producers to collect information about. First, I accessed online biographies of a small number of prominent writer–producers: they were Denniz Pop, Max Martin, Shellback, Jörgen Elofsson, and Andreas Carlsson. That data material unveiled connections that these five have had with other actors within the Swedish music cluster, mostly through songwriting and production collaborations. Using online biographies of these secondary actors, I uncovered further collaborators, and so on. This is in essence a snowball sampling procedure, although the method is usually associated with the establishment of interviewees and informants rather than a media-based information gathering method. I arrived at a large number of potential study subjects. The music database discogs.com—a searchable discography of music recordings with data on artists, writers, and producers—was then used to gather information with the objective to discriminate between individuals who

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had significant musical output and those who did not, and also writer– producers who worked predominantly with international artists and those limited to domestic work in Sweden. Ultimately I identified 34 internationally recognized actors (Table 3.1). As an aid to the reader, the right column in the table also contains a short biographical sketch of each writer–producer. To collect the data, I used all the names in Table 3.1 as search words in (1) the National Newspaper Index; (2) Libris (which is a database maintained by a Swedish library consortium that comprehensively covers all printed material in Sweden); and (3) a basic Google search. To narrow the results, I only collected longer feature material, especially containing interviews. The final selection included 395 data sources (what I throughout the remainder of the study call the “data” or the “data material”). Of those, 346 were written sources, 14 were sound files (e.g., podcasts and radio interviews), and 35 video files (e.g., filmed interviews, documentaries, and YouTube clips). Of the written sources, 258 were in English, 87 in Swedish, and one in Norwegian. Two sound files were in English and 12 in Swedish. Of the video files, 17 were in English and 18 in Swedish. I subjected the data to a content analysis, guided by the tripartite theoretical structure from Chapter 2, to extract and sort relevant textual material. This allowed me to construct a narrative of how the Swedish writer–producer cluster developed over time and to identify elements that exemplify circulation of musical knowledge, reputation of people and places, and forms of hybridity in the music. It should be noted, however, that the collected media texts are not a sample in a statistical sense. Instead, the method was designed to establish an appropriately sized body of data. It is sufficiently large to piece together a comprehensive picture of the 2.0 network.

The Historical Background to 2.0 Almost all of the Swedish writer–producers can trace their lineage to the legendary Cheiron Studios in Stockholm. Some were active there, while others were later mentored by Max Martin or others from Cheiron. Only a handful have had careers largely detached from the “Cheironites.” This section summarizes the history of the Swedish writer–producer phenomenon. Readers who want additional information may turn to the fourhour, two-part radio documentary Cheiron – en popsaga and Arvet efter

Denniz Pop (Dag Volle)

Herbie Crichlow

Andreas Carlsson

Bloodshy & Avant (Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg)

Arnthor Birgisson

b. 1991 in Stockholm, Sweden. Mentored by Sebastian Ingrosso of Swedish House Mafia, Alesso became a remixer, producer, and a performer-DJ in the EDM genre b. 1968 in Stockholm, Sweden. Writer–producer who co-founded the production company Murlyn in Stockholm. Initially worked as Bagge & Peer with Peer Åström, later in other writer constellations for many international artists. Also known as Idol jury member in Sweden b. 1976 in Reykyavik, Iceland. Moved to Stockholm as a child. As a writer–producer, Birgisson has been affiliated with Anders Bagge’s Murlyn and Max Martin’s Maratone, as well as working independently b. 1975 in Gothenburg, Sweden (both). Played as teenagers in the same rock band in Gothenburg. After gaining reputation as remixers, they moved to writing and production, mostly active in Stockholm. Known for their work with Britney Spears and Madonna. They have together or separately pursued various projects as artists, such as the band Miike Snow b. 1973 in Danderyd (a Stockholm suburb), Sweden. Growing up in southern Sweden, Carlsson returned to Stockholm and rose to prominence as Cheiron writer. Later co-founder of The Location production company in Stockholm. Subsequently moved to Los Angeles, worked with American writers, such as Desmond Child. Co-writer of Cirque du Soleil’s Broadway musical Paramour. Also known as Idol jury member in Sweden b. 1968 in England. Grew up in Barbados. Moved to Sweden and became a Cheiron writer–producer. Was successful in the late 1990s and early 2000s working with Backstreet Boys and Robyn. Less active in recent times b. 1963 in Botkyrka (a Stockholm suburb), Sweden. Of Norwegian ethnicity, Pop started as a Stockholm-area DJ, then joined the DJ-collective/record label Swemix. Founder of Cheiron (and indirectly the Swedish writer–producer cluster). First major success as producer was Ace of Base’s The Sign. Mentored Max Martin and many others. Died of cancer in 1998

The main players in the Swedish songwriter–producer cluster

Alesso (Alessandro Lindblad) Anders Bagge

Table 3.1

46 O. JOHANSSON

Alexander Kronlund

David Kreuger

Savan Kotecha

Oscar Holter

Carl Falk

Gustav Efraimsson

Jörgen Elofsson

THE MAIN PLAYERS

(continued)

b. 1962 in Ängelholm (town in southern Sweden). After short career as artist, he was recruited to Cheiron. Mostly active as songwriter. Worked for Simon Cowell and artists performing on the British Pop Idol and American Idol TV-shows. Also known as co-writer of Kelly Clarkson’s hit Stronger (What doesn’t kill you) b. 1980 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Started as a DJ, but soon emerged as a songwriter. Was connected through his publisher to various Latin performers, but has also written for New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys, Snoop Dogg, and Eurovision performers b. 1980 in Stockholm, Sweden. Started working for The Location production company as boy band writer. Has worked closely with fellow Swedish writer–producer Rami Yacoub, including as founders of Kinglet Studios. Known as co-writer of songs for One Direction, Nicki Minaj, and Avicii b. 1986 in Degerfors (town in central Sweden). First a member of a local synth pop band and later recruited to the Wolf Cousins collective in Stockholm. Especially since 2015, working as a writer–producer for international artists, and increasingly in the United States b. 1978 in Vermont, United States. Emerged as a songwriter in his hometown of Austin, Texas. Encouraged by his publisher to relocate to Stockholm, Sweden to develop as a writer–producer. There he connected with RedOne and others. Associated with Simon Cowell’s X Factor and artists such as One Direction and Ariana Grande b. 1967 in Finspång (town in central Sweden). As a member of the same Stockholm DJ scene as Denniz Pop, Kreuger was hired at Cheiron and worked there in the 1990s. Subsequently founded A Side Productions with Per Magnusson, writing and producing for international artists in the 2000s. More recently a writer for Eurovision performers b. 1971 in Stockholm, Sweden. Went to high school with Max Martin and both were hired at Cheiron. Has maintained strong connections with Martin over the years, including affiliations with Martin’s MXM Studios and Wolf Cousins, and has a long track record of writing–producing for international artists from the 1990s until today

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(continued)

Mattman & Robin (Mattias Larsson and Robin Fredriksson)

Max Martin (Martin Sandberg)

Per Magnusson

Kristian Lundin

Pelle Lidell

Magnus Lidehäll

Table 3.1 b. 1985 in Uppsala (town in central Sweden). Started as a hip-hop artist. As a writer–producer, Lidehäll often works with domestic artists, but collaborations with Sebastian Ingrosso (of Swedish House Mafia) and Bloodshy & Avant has also brought him international writing–production credits b. 1962 in Stockholm, Sweden. Initially a drummer for different Swedish bands, Lidell moved into music management, specifically A&R. As co-owner of Murlyn, Lidell was instrumental in the management of the Swedish writer–producer cluster. Recently, he has again worked in A&R and for music rights organizations b. 1973 in Järfälla (suburb of Stockholm), Sweden. Writer–producer and a member of Cheiron. Subsequently he started The Location with Andreas Carlsson and Jacob Schulze. Lundin has also been part of the writing group for the boy band One Direction b. 1969 in Tyresö (suburb of Stockholm), Sweden. Worked as a writer–producer for Cheiron. After its demise, Magnusson started A Side Productions with David Kreuger. There he wrote for several successful British Pop Idol and X Factor contestants b. 1971 in Stockholm, Sweden. As a singer in a hard rock band, Martin originally signed with Cheiron as an artist, only to become the company’s most prolific writer–producer. Later he started the production company Maratone and has mentored the Wolf Cousins collective. Working in both Stockholm and Los Angeles, Martin is one of the most successful writer–producers in the history of pop music Mattman: b. 1986 in Karlstad (town in central Sweden) and, Robin: b. 1986 in Hagfors (town in central Sweden). Since high school, Mattman & Robin have played, written, and produced music together. Mentored by Max Martin and Shellback, they worked on Taylor Swift’s hit album 1989. Since then, Mattman & Robin have written and produced for numerous international artists, including Imagine Dragons

48 O. JOHANSSON

Shellback (Johan Schuster)

Jacob Schulze

Ilya Salmanzadeh

RedOne (Nadir Khayat)

Ash Pournouri

Vincent Pontare

Ali Payami

THE MAIN PLAYERS

(continued)

b. 1983 in Malmö, Sweden. Of Iranian–Swedish ethnicity, Payami started as a DJ. Via music industry contacts in Sweden, he was introduced to Shellback and Max Martin and became a member of Wolf Cousins. After co-writing and co-producing Taylor Swift’s hit album 1989, he has worked with numerous international artists b. 1980 in Solna (a Stockholm suburb), Sweden. After a brief stint as a hip-hop artist, Pontare started to write for and produce various Swedish artists. As such, he teamed up with Swedish House Mafia, Avicii, and Magnus Lidehäll. While occasionally working internationally, Pontare remains primarily a domestic writer–producer b. 1981 in Iran. Pournouri moved to Sweden as a child and grew up in the Stockholm area. He is best known as DJ-artist Avicii’s manager. As such he was co-credited for the writing and production of many of Avicii’s songs. He has also worked as a music entrepreneur in different capacities b. 1972 in Tétouan, Morocco. Inspired by Swedish pop music, RedOne moved to Stockholm as a 19-year-old. He slowly established himself as a writer–producer in Stockholm. After 15 years in Sweden, and becoming a naturalized Swedish citizen, he relocated to New York and later Los Angeles. Strongly associated with Lady Gaga as her co-writer and producer b. 1986 in Stockholm, Sweden. Of Iranian–Swedish ethnicity, a teenage Salmanzadeh signed with Warner/Chappell in Stockholm as a songwriter, attended music college in Los Angeles, and returned to Shellback and Max Martin’s Wolf Cousins in Stockholm. Has contributed to hits by pop artists like Ariana Grande and Ellie Goulding b. 1972 in Sweden. Schulze was a member Cheiron. Together with fellow Cheironites Andreas Carlsson and Kristian Lundin, Schulze founded the production company The Location. His recent studio and record label activities in Stockholm are relatively small-scale with a focus on domestic artists b. 1985 in Karlshamn (town in southern Sweden). Started as a drummer and singer for metal bands. Through a mutual friend, Shellback met Max Martin who brought him to Stockholm to work as a pop writer–producer. Arguably the most prominent individual in the Swedish cluster after Max Martin

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(continued) b. 1974 in Jönköping (town in southern Sweden). Guitarist and primary songwriter in the internationally recognized band The Cardigans. As the band has been on hiatus, Svensson emerged during the last decade as an important writer–producer in the Wolf Cousins collective in Stockholm b. 1987 in Stockholm, Sweden. Involved in the Stockholm music scene, Tove Lo secured a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell as a songwriter, which brought her into Max Martin’s Wolf Cousins. She has, parallel to her writing, also maintained a solo career as an electro-indie pop artist b. 1975 in Stockholm, Sweden. Of Palestinian–Swedish ethnicity, Yacoub started playing in hard rock bands. Later joined Cheiron where he co-wrote and produced several of their hits. Followed Max Martin to Maratone, later Yacoub worked closely with fellow Swedish writer–producer Carl Falk, including the production company Kinglet Studios with dual bases in Stockholm and Los Angeles b. 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden. Member of the rock band Teddybears. Connecting with Stockholm-based artist Robyn, Åhlund received accolades as her co-writer and producer. This opened up opportunities for international writing and production work b. 1972 in Ljusdal (town in north-central Sweden). Moved to Stockholm as a session musician. Partnered with Anders Bagge as the writer–producer duo Bagge & Peer, which was part of the Murlyn production company. Has been writer and producer for the American musical TV show Glee

Note Some writer–producers frequently work together. If so, they are listed as pairs here. Others use anglicized pseudonyms. If so, their real names are listed in parenthesis below. Most are Swedish-born, a few are naturalized Swedish citizens, while others have lived and worked in Sweden for a significant period of time. All, however, were trained and socialized into their roles as songwriters and producers in Sweden and henceforth referred to as the Swedish cluster of writer–producers. The biographical sketches are compiled from a variety of sources in the data material

Peer Åström

Klas Åhlund

Rami Yacoub

Tove Lo (Tove Nilsson)

Peter Svensson

Table 3.1

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Cheiron (in Swedish), which contains first-hand accounts from many of the people involved, or John Seabrook’s book The Song Machine (2015a). Cheiron Studios was started by Denniz Pop (sometimes stylized Denniz PoP) in Stockholm in 1992. Pop (known as “Dagge” to his friends—a diminutive of his first name Dag) grew up in Tullinge, a suburb of Stockholm, born to Norwegian parents living in Sweden. He emerged as a DJ on the Stockholm club scene during the 1980s with a preference for funk and a reputation for skillfully mixing songs. Pop was also a member of the DJ collective and record label Swemix, which issued remixed versions of previously recorded songs. The moniker Denniz Pop emerged at this time—Denniz as a reference to the cartoon character Dennis the Menace and Pop as a way to stress his preference for commercial pop music. The name was established without much thought and certainly with no assumption that it would eventually denote a legendary producer (Sveriges Radio 2008). Pop’s first success as a producer was the song Hello Africa by a Stockholm DJ-turned-rapper, Dr. Alban. The song became a Euro-wide hit in 1990. At that point, Pop broke with Swemix, which was narrowly interested in dance music, while Pop had broader aspirations. Club owner Tom Talomaa supported the establishment of Swemix, but he also believed in Pop’s vision and helped finance Cheiron Studios. The name Cheiron is derived from a centaur in Greek mythology, which was a personal interest of Pop (Sveriges Radio 2008). In its early stages, Cheiron sought local talent in Stockholm and elsewhere in Sweden. It worked mostly with unknown artists with the goal of selling records across Europe. An unsigned band from Gothenburg—Ace of Base—was impressed by Cheiron productions and sent them a demo. As the story goes, the demo featuring the song All That She Wants was stuck in the cassette player of Pop’s car and it played over and over again, which caught Pop’s attention. The band was offered a record contract. Massive success followed as Cheiron negotiated a distribution deal with the international label Arista for Ace of Base’s first album. Most famously, it featured The Sign, which was one of the biggest international hits of the 1990s. Ace of Base was followed by the hit singles Do You Know (What It Takes) and Show Me Love by the young Swedish artist Robyn. Increasingly, Cheiron attracted international artists. Particularly through Jive Records (a sublabel of Zomba, which in turn was owned by the multinational BMG) which at the time focused on boy bands and teen artists. The first such Jive-Cheiron collaboration was Backstreet Boys, followed

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by NSYNC (sometimes stylized *NSYNC) and Britney Spears. The Jive method of promoting boy bands was to build up a fan base in Europe through touring and marketing, followed by expanding into the American market. Writing and recording in Stockholm became a fundamental piece of that strategy. First intended as a record label, Cheiron soon focused exclusively on writing and production. Denniz Pop assembled a number of talented writer–producers at Cheiron. Some people, like David Kreuger, knew Denniz Pop from the Stockholm DJ circuit. Kristian Lundin was also a DJ, as well as the producer of the aforementioned rapper Dr. Alban. This connection brought him in contact with Denniz Pop who invited Lundin to work at Cheiron. Herbie Critchlow was a Barbados Brit living and working in Sweden who had a useful advantage, as a native English speaker, in writing lyrics. Other recruits to the Cheiron group were artists originally offered record contracts at Cheiron. After brief and typically mediocre careers, they stayed on as writer–producers. Jörgen Elofsson and Andreas Carlsson are two such examples, both of whom arrived at Cheiron at the helm of soul-pop bands. Arguably, the most consequential addition was Martin Sandberg (later Max Martin) and his metal band It’s Alive. The band floundered but Denniz Pop needed trained musicians to support Cheiron’s writing and production. Martin could sing, arrange vocals, and was well versed in music theory. This is also when the name Max Martin was invented by Denniz Pop. Without asking Martin, Pop added the pseudonym on the credits of Cheiron productions. Several other persons were part of Cheiron (e.g., Per Magnusson, Jacob Schulze, Rami Yacoub), and over time different loose writing constellations emerged based on who worked well with whom. Cheiron at the time was quite insular; the group worked independently of the outside world while “holed up” behind the unassuming and drab exterior of the studio space at Fridhemsplan Square in central Stockholm (Fig. 3.1). The immense success of Cheiron opened up opportunities for other production companies. The most significant of those was Murlyn Music, which was founded in 1998 by Anders Bagge, who had worked with Cheiron before striking out on his own. In a sense, Murlyn replicated Cheiron’s structure. Bagge was the creative head much like Denniz Pop, while his partner Christian Wåhlberg, a former record store and indie label owner, was the business manager much like Tom Talomaa. Unlike Cheiron though—and most other entities of the 2.0 phenomenon that came

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Fig. 3.1 The location of former Cheiron Studios at Fridhemsplan in Stockholm, 2019 (Photo: Jared Raab/Banger Films)

later—Murlyn was housed in a secluded exurban location outside Stockholm. There, Murlyn had multiple studios and ran a publishing division as well as a record label. It was home to producers such as Arnthor Birgisson and Bloodshy (Christian Karlsson), who had been recruited from the creative pool of writer–producers in Stockholm. Murlyn utilized a more formalized version of what had emerged naturally at Cheiron: small groups (usually duos) who worked semi-independently from each other under one umbrella. According to Bagge, one element was distinctly different: Murlyn avoided a formulaic sound, which Cheiron was known for (Buskin 2001). (The Cheiron sound is discussed in Chapter 4.) Murlyn wrote and produced for new boy bands (e.g., 98 Degrees) but also for established stars (e.g., Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Janet Jackson, and Celine Dion). Bagge and Wåhlberg eventually sold the Murlyn publishing catalogue in 2007 and closed the company. At Cheiron, Denniz Pop unexpectedly died of stomach cancer in 1998, at the age of 35. A couple of years later, the remaining people decided to close Cheiron. Partly because it felt rudderless without its founder,

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but Cheiron “had been taken as far as possible,” [my transl.] according to Max Martin (Sveriges Radio 2015a). The boy band and Britney sound was increasingly out-of-date and those involved felt a fresh start was needed. Three production companies emerged out of Cheiron. One was The Location, which continued at Cheiron’s old studio space. It was started by three Cheironites—Schultze, Carlsson, and Lundin—who had similar music preferences (Bouwman 2003). New talent were added over time, including Carl Falk and the American Savan Kotecha. Compared to Cheiron, The Location did not have a standing “deal” with an outside entity (e.g., writing for Jive/Zomba artists)—and neither did any of the other new Cheiron spin-offs. Writers were also more likely to seek out partners outside the production company itself. Andreas Carlsson, for example, wrote with American Desmond Child, a prominent writer for acts like Bon Jovi, Kiss, and Joan Jett. The Location did, however, continue the tradition of writing on commission. Lundin says, “90% of the time” they wrote for specific artists (ibid.). Three other Cheironites—Elofsson, Krueger, and Magnusson—started A Side Production. Magnusson and Kreuger had known each other since meeting at a Stockholm record shop where Kreuger worked and Magnusson was a customer. After collaborating at Cheiron, they logically continued as a team afterwards. Existing Cheiron contacts were useful when moving forward. For A Side, Simon Cowell was especially important. Cowell managed the Irish boy band Westlife, a Cheiron customer. A Side Productions continued to be Cowell’s choice for subsequent projects, such as the television show Pop Idol. The third new production company was Maratone, founded by Max Martin and Tom Talomaa. Martin needed writing partners, so Rami Yacoub was acquired from Cheiron. A new studio was set up in the Söder neighborhood of central Stockholm. As the other constellations, Martin and Maratone continued to work with artists with whom they had formed successful relationships with at Cheiron. It should be noted, however, that the three new production companies were not isolated and independent of each other. This period was characterized by fluidity and cross-collaboration across production company lines. For example, Carl Falk from The Location started the production company Kinglet Studios with Rami Yacoub at Maratone after a few years. In addition to Maratone, Max Martin also started a second production company called MXM.

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In truth, the new structure struggled at first, at least in comparison to the unprecedented success of Cheiron. Cheiron’s songs were almost always selected as singles for the albums in which they were featured. That was increasingly not the case. For example, Maratone’s contribution was not the single for the third Britney Spears album in 2001. The actual selection, I’m a Slave 4 U, deviated from Cheiron’s style in a way that Max Martin did not like or understand. The sound of pop music in general shifted toward R&B, emphasizing beats more than melody. Martin says the boy band phenomenon experienced a stock market-like crash: Pharrell came along with “super cool beats” and we were “stuck in one place” (Gradvall 2016b). Pharrell is a reference to the new goto hitmaker, American Pharrell Williams. In fact, I’m a Slave 4 U was a Williams’ production. The early 2000s were the doldrums years for the post-Cheiron Swedish cluster. The few successful contributions, like Bloodshy & Avant, focused on R&B. Therefore, Max Martin felt a need to recalibrate, musically and geographically. Martin was never going to adopt hip-hop/R&B as the foundation for his songwriting; instead, he traveled to New York seeking inspiration from indie rock. From the New York visits, a new Martin protégé and collaborator emerged, Dr. Luke (Lukasz Gottwald). The two composed Kelly Clarkson’s 2004 hit Since U Been Gone, which became a comeback for Martin. However, the real “bridge” from the Cheiron period to a second, and ongoing, era of Swedish success was the Idol phenomenon on television. Starting with Simon Cowell’s Pop Idol in Britain and continuing with American Idol, The X Factor, and other similar shows, the Swedes were frequently commissioned to write songs to be performed on the shows, as well as working with artists for whom these talent shows were a launchpad for subsequent careers. Especially Jörgen Elofsson has been the main Idol songwriter working for Cowell. Arguably the most important artist of the talent shows was One Direction. This is not only because a group of Swedes (Falk, Yacoub, and Kotecha) wrote for and produced the band, but because it reimagined the boy band concept around 2010, a longtime staple of the Swedish cluster. With the shift from close-knit Cheiron to more network collaborations—both inside Stockholm-based writing and production and with other actors elsewhere in the world—the spatial dynamics of work also changed. More and more Swedish writer–producers relocated to Los Angeles, or at least spent significant time there to expand collaborative

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networks. However, Stockholm remained an important base for many of them. This geographic phenomenon is dealt with later in this chapter. Another trend that should be acknowledged is the popularity of dance music. The most common label for this style is EDM (electronic dance music). Sweden played a major role and two artists in particular popularized once underground dance music styles such as house and techno: Swedish House Mafia and Avicii, with a peak around 2010–2015.1 EDM is primarily an artist-based scene rather than centered on writing and production, but as will be evident later there are significant connections between EDM and the writing–production cluster in Stockholm. Over the years, new Swedish writer–producers have emerged. Some of the Cheironites reduced their songwriting and are instead involved in management or other creative endeavors. Two significant additions are worth highlighting here. RedOne (Nadir Khayat) says that the Swedish rock band Europe’s 1980s rock anthem The Final Countdown was the first record he bought and that is why he wanted to be a musician (FaceCulture 2016). In fact, he traveled from his native Morocco to Stockholm in 1991 as a 19-yearold, located the house of Joey Tempest (Europe’s lead singer) and simply knocked on the door. While Tempest was not present at the time, rather than being treated as a stalker RedOne was invited back for a meeting with Tempest who inspired him to pursue a music career. After several lean years, first as a performer and later as a writer–producer, RedOne slowly developed a resumé as a producer for Swedish artists. After leaving Stockholm for New York in 2007, his major breakthrough occurred as Lady Gaga’s co-writer and producer. RedOne is now L.A.-based but frequently collaborates with his old colleagues from Stockholm. In 2006, Maratone found a new songwriter, Shellback. He has contributed to multiple worldwide hits, many of them co-written with Max Martin. The two shared a common background in metal music, but Martin convinced Shellback to refocus his musical efforts toward writing pop songs. Shellback’s breakthrough, Pink’s 2008 So What , strongly hints at his grounding in rock music. While Martin now spends more time in Los Angeles than Stockholm, Shellback has remained Stockholm-based. With the two of them as mentors, a new songwriting collective was formed in Stockholm in 2013. The 1 Swedish House Mafia retired as a band at the peak of its career in 2013. Avicii struggled with fame and committed suicide in 2018.

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idea was to develop a new team of Swedish writer–producers. The group is called Wolf Cousins and includes relative newcomers, such as Ali Payami and Ilya Salmanzade. An old Cheironite—Alexander Kronlund—is also tied to the group, as is Peter Svensson, guitarist in the band The Cardigans who was connected to the world of pop when Justin Bieber incorporated the chorus of The Cardigans hit Lovefool into one of his songs, and since then Svensson has primarily worked as a pop writer–producer. For the first time, an effort was made to include women, such as Tove Lo and Laleh. Especially Tove Lo has also had international success as an artist. Wolf Cousins have been instrumental in the continuity of Stockholm pop music. Billboard recently stated that “on any given week on the Hot 100 these days, Swedish songwriters pop up on a minimum of 20% of the whole chart.…the Swedish invasion is at peaks unseen since the late ‘90s” (Hampp 2015).

Data Analysis Reputation in Songwriting and Production The previous section provided a timeline of how the Swedish music miracle unfolded. The remaining chapter analyzes and presents the data material as outlined in the method section above. The first theme to investigate is reputation. Through which mechanisms does reputation flow and how does it play out in the context of the global circuit of pop music writing and production? One feature of reputation that stands out in that data is its propensity to be “spiky.” Popularity of pop songs and styles are characterized by brevity rather than longevity. This is exemplified by the amount of success writer–producers have during specific, but usually short time periods. One phenomenon frequently described in the text material is how suddenly the “phones kept on ringing.” The outcome is that writer–producers have more opportunities to choose projects they want and therefore to steer their careers in a desirable direction. It can also be a career stepping stone, such as when the earlier obscure Klas Åhlund had the opportunity to produce famous artists like Britney Spears (Ericsson 2008). Bursts of sudden attention are usually associated with a particular song reaching the charts. Having a hit opens doors (Granström 2009), suddenly everybody “loves you” (Lindh 2008), and you are the world’s most in-demand songwriter (Burger 2012).

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Figure 3.2 shows the temporal rhythm of writing and production credits among the researched individuals. Based on material extracted from the industry website allmusic.com, which includes comprehensive data on songwriting and production credits, the Cheiron boom circa 1999– 2001 is quite evident, especially the number of Max Martin credits. After a few years of moderate-level activity, writing and recording credits again started to spike around 2008 and remained high for a decade. In addition to Max Martin, RedOne and Savan Kotecha exhibit a pattern of dramatic peaks. On a smaller scale and to different degrees, that is also evident for many of the other writer–producers. Data collection for Fig. 3.2 ended in spring 2018, which may explain the seemingly precipitous decline that year. The broad pattern of music output depicted in Fig. 3.2 largely corresponds to another measure—Grammy wins and nominations—which is presented in Fig. 3.3. The recognition of Cheiron in the American music industry is evident in the year 1999. Except for two Grammy wins in

Fig. 3.2 Output by writer-producer on a yearly basis, 1993–2018 (The datasource is the industry website Allmusic.com. All records [including singles, albums, and other formats] with “composer” and/or “producer” in the credit column were included. The data were screened for duplicate entries and compilation albums were omitted. Note that most records have more than one writerproducer, so they will appear multiple times in the chart)

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Fig. 3.3 Grammy wins and nominations, by year (Wins show the number of individuals in the Swedish cluster who won a Grammy each year. Nominations show the number of individuals in the Swedish cluster who were nominated for a Grammy [excluding those who won]. Categories indicate the number of categories [e.g., best dance recording, song of the year, etc.] that the Swedes won or were nominated in. As many recordings have multiple writers and producers, categories as depicted in the figure are typically lower than wins plus nominations in any given year [Data source: www.grammy.com])

2004, there is a significant gap from 2000 until a “second wave” starts in 2008. After the peak year of 2015, no Grammy wins or even nominations occurred in 2017–2018. Note, however, that Swedish writer–producer Ludwig Göransson racked up seven Grammy wins or nominations in 2018–2019. Never Stockholm-based (he has been operating out of southern California his entire career), Göransson is not defined here as part of the Swedish cluster, although he may have benefitted from a Swedish reputation. See Chapter 5 for more on Göransson. There are some variations to the basic effect of reputation in writing– production, as exemplified by Ariana Grande’s 2014 song Problem, which was written and produced by the Wolf Cousins collective. Requests for songs accelerated after Problem, but music industry actors extended their desire to work with Wolf Cousins members beyond those involved with the Grande song; thus, positive reputation by association (also called reputation borrowing in Chapter 2) was established (Sveriges Radio 2015a). Another example is Murlyn’s success with the band 98 Degrees, which

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gave the company opportunities to write for Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez (Blumentrath 2011). These were artists that they “shared” with their Stockholm colleagues at Cheiron, which suggests reputation borrowing based on two production companies knowing each other and sharing work, and/or place-based reputation where positive traits are assumed of individuals from the same local milieu. Who are the people who notice a writer–producer with a recent hit? The answer is usually the artists themselves or their management. Star performers are frequently quoted in the data wanting to work with a top producer like Max Martin because of his general reputation as a hit song maker. This reputation can also be attractive for artists who want to cross over into pop from other genres. Taylor Swift is a good example, who was aided in her transformation from country to pop by Max Martin and Shellback (e.g., the songs We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and Shake It Off ). The impetus to such contacts may at times be serendipitous as much as truly reputational. The British singer Adele heard the new Taylor Swift sound during a lunch at a restaurant and summoned Martin and Shellback to London for a recording session (Gradvall 2016c). Haitian–American rapper Wyclef Jean was equally captivated by a song he heard on the radio, this time by Avicii. A request to Avicii’s manager Ash Pournouri resulted in a 20-song collaboration during a week in Stockholm (Hampp 2015). Sometimes it is the artists’ management that establish connections, especially in the situation of a powerful manager vis-à-vis inexperienced artist. Simon Cowell, as a manager, steered his boy band Westlife to Cheiron. The account was assigned to Jörgen Elofsson who has been closely affiliated with Cowell ever since. In the case of Ariana Grande’s song Love Me Harder, her label wanted a duet with the up-and-coming Canadian artist The Weeknd. Inviting critically acclaimed or less mainstream artists as guests on a song is a common strategy for “lightweight” artist like Grande, who had a teen star background, to acquire a greater level of authenticity. In this case, the producer Savan Kotecha also experienced enhanced reputation. The “kind of artists I would only dream about” started to call, says Kotecha (Cragg 2015b). Another outcome is that other writer–producers want to collaborate when reputation has been acquired. This happened during the Cheiron epoch. One example is Desmond Child who contacted Cheiron to collaborate on new songs. Andreas Carlsson seized the opportunity as he idolized the rock band

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Kiss, which had been closely associated with Child in the past (Bouwman 2009a). From a creative perspective, enhanced reputation can also be limiting. The expectation may be that a writer–producer should replicate success by producing a new song that is as similar as possible to the previously delivered hit. The production duo Bloodshy & Avant experienced that when they developed a sound that combined pop melodies and dance beats. Their first hit was AM to PM with Christina Milian. Bloodshy & Avant worked along similar sonic principles with Britney Spears’ hit Toxic. This ushered in another round of requests for more of the same, but the duo “hit the wall” due to the expectation to copy themselves. In fact, the experience led them to dismantle their collaboration (Amster 2012). If the progenitor of a distinct sound is not willing to replicate the success, others are eager to do so. As Swedish music journalist Jan Gradvall (2016b) writes, “As soon as a brand new Max Martin tune begins climbing the charts, 10 000 songwriters all over the world immediately try to copy it.” Once a reputation is established, artists want to work with a particular writer–producer to achieve commercial success. But an additional goal for artists may be to enhance authenticity. This happens when a writer– producer has acquired a reputation as innovative rather than just a track record of commercial success. A case in point would be Klas Åhlund, known from indie rock (especially with his band Teddybears) as well as pop through his work as a producer for Robyn on her 2005 eponymous album Robyn, which brought niche dance music to a wider audience. After its critical acclaim, Åhlund had the opportunity to work with international artists like Katy Perry and Kesha. Not because Robyn’s outstanding sales, but its ability to connect commercial pop to innovative trends. On this phenomenon, see also the box “Madonna and the Swedes.” Seemingly, writer–producers with enhanced reputation want to collaborate with established star performers. As it turns out, writing for such artists is often viewed as a profitable venture, but new artists are reputation enhancers. Or as Rami Yacoub says, “there’s nothing better than breaking a new artist…Jumping on the eleventh album of Céline Dion is not nearly as exciting” (Bouwman 2009b).

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Madonna and the Swedes Perhaps the best example of Swedish authenticity reputation would be the case of Madonna. She is an artist known to reinvent herself on a regular basis as a way to stay relevant in popular music. Madonna appreciated Robyn’s style and hired Åhlund for the song Some Girls. Robyn had the requisite credibility suitable for Madonna: dance music but with an alternative edge. For Madonna’s 2005 Confessions on a Dancefloor album, which was lauded as a comeback, Bloodshy & Avant and Peer Åström provided her with a pop sound that also incorporated newer electronic sounds. (As an interesting case of circulation, Britney Spears, with long-standing connections to Sweden, also wanted to reignite her career. Inspired by the Madonna album, she hired Bloodshy & Avant for her 2007 album Blackout.) Taking pride in always having “her finger on the pulse,” Madonna singled out the Swedish DJ Alesso as “the next big thing” (Sheridan 2012). Alesso opened for Madonna during her European tour that year. In general, Madonna has been surrounded by creative Swedes. A Madonna post on Instagram shows her sitting on the floor and playing guitar with Swedish artists and producers Avicii, Vincent Pontare, Salem Al Fakir, and Magnus Lidehäll, as part of a collaborative writing session. In the post, she calls the Swedes her “Viking harem” and Avicii the “Viking leader” (Carlsson 2014).

In the end, to what extent does reputation matter in songwriting? One argument is that artists and record labels have access to a wide variety of potential songs and the best song will be selected no matter who wrote it. The counterargument is that among a plethora of potential songs, name recognition makes sure a song is heard when artist and label people discuss what to record. Thus, reputation acts as a gatekeeper and reputable writers have an easier time placing songs. They are also more likely to be hired for co-writing sessions together with an artist. The outcome is, as Savan Kotecha points out, that reputable writers do not write as many songs as early-career writers, but more songs get “cut” (recorded) as a percentage of all songs written (Golan 2017). In production, it is more obvious that reputation matters. For example, music history includes many producer–auteurs—such as Phil Spector, Quincy Jones, Brian Eno, and Rick Rubin—that are highly sought after. The importance of name recognition is illustrated by the phenomenon of ghost production (Cunningham 2015). Much like ghostwriting in book publishing, a ghost producer is somebody who does a lot of the work while not officially

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acknowledged for it. The record label or the artist want brand producers to be associated with a recording, but the system also allows for lesserknown but skilled talent to contribute (who do not yet have much reputation). Ghost producers may sign confidentiality agreements and relinquish the rights to their contribution. This may limit reputation building, unless informal buzz develops around the contribution of the ghost producer. The People Network: Global and Local People are brought together to collaborate in different ways. The flow of information about music, and the individuals behind it, are parts of a global network. At the same time, connections are made locally and may extend far back in time. The roots of the Swedish cluster go back to Stockholm during the 1980s. Many of the writer–producers knew each other as early as high school. The most important of Stockholm high schools is Södra Latin. The reason is its music program, which makes it a magnet school for music talent in the greater Stockholm region. Max Martin, Alexander Kronlund, and Klas Åhlund attended at the same time. Martin and Kronlund were part of Cheiron, and Åhlund joined the other two for musical collaborations later. Carl Falk and writer–producer Salem al Fakir were also Södra Latin contemporaries. Avicii, on the other hand, attended another high school with Alesso, which has been described as a “greenhouse for the Swedish house miracle” as it included multiple people in the Swedish EDM scene (Natt och Dag 2015). Since 1993, the school Rytmus has offered music education in Stockholm with an emphasis on popular music. As students there, Tove Lo met Caroline Hjelt (one half of the band Icona Pop) which resulted in song collaborations and contacts in the music industry that brought Tove Lo into the Max Martin orbit of songwriting (Nöjesguiden 2015). In the south Swedish region of Blekinge, Shellback was a high school friend of Julius Petersson. That turned out to be crucial as Petersson’s sister dated Max Martin (they are now married) in the early 2000s. Petersson brought Shellback and Martin together. Eventually Martin recruited Shellback to Stockholm as a Maratone assistant (Gradvall 2016a). Shellback is arguably Sweden’s second most successful writer–producer after Max Martin and, together with Julius Peterson, leads the Wolf Cousins collective in Stockholm.

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Not only are connections forged early in life, but they also last. Many people who embark on a music career famously struggle to gain a foothold in the business. Such shared experiences also form lasting bonds. Two non-Swedes—Savan Kotecha and RedOne—relocated to Stockholm to become musicians and writer–producers. Due to the lack of financial security, both resorted to using studios as improvised living space. But after some time in Stockholm, they had been absorbed into the local writer–producer network. Neither of them reside in Stockholm today, but much of the work the two have done since is with other Swedes, based on a shared history. To paraphrase several Swedish writer–producers in the data material: you call your friends when there is a need for collaborative work. Or another common sentiment is: always remember those who helped you earlier in your career. These examples suggest a sense of comradery and desire to work with long-standing partners. Long-term relationships are also established with artists, who commonly employ the same writer–producer for several albums. The best example is perhaps Britney Spears. Her early albums as a teen star were Cheiron productions. Several of the Cheironites contributed during that period, although decisions to do so were probably influenced by her management. In later years, Spears—with a different, more adult pop sound—has worked closely with Bloodshy & Avant. Another multiple album association is between RedOne and Lady Gaga. One important element here is the establishment of a personal connection that comes from working together before the breakthrough of the artist (Granström 2010). Under such circumstances, a high degree of trust develops, often resulting in long-term professional relationships. However, as new trends and artists emerge quickly, old connections are not always sufficient. Niclas Molinder, who has written for Jonas Brothers and Disney artists, points out that songwriting constitutes 50% of his work, while the other half is dedicated to constant networking (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2012). Even superficial contacts, such as the proverbial hand shaking, acts as a pre-stage to reputation building, and allows a songwriter to be in consideration for future writing contracts. In the industry hierarchy, an inexperienced writer–producer may only gain personal access to assistants not decision-makers; later however, as pointed out in the data, yesterday’s assistant is tomorrow’s executive. The implication here is that long-term personal trust and face-to-face interaction are crucial. Therefore, people who build extensive networks spend a great

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deal of time in industry centers, especially Los Angeles. Even the Stockholm music industry is not sufficiently large. I will return to the Stockholm–L.A. relationship later in this chapter. Contact networks tend to be individual. As illustrated throughout this monograph, people form bonds with other people, not production companies or other industry entities. At the same time, one-on-one connections do not constitute a network. Connections often develop in chains where one person is introduced to another, and so on. This may happen on a producer-to-producer basis. For example, Adam Anders as the musical director of the television show Glee approaches Max Martin asking for a musical contribution, then Martin contacts Savan Kotecha, who is better positioned to do so as he just wrote for television on the X Factor (Corner 2011). A slight variation involves industry intermediaries. Early career writer–producers pitch songs to music publishers or record labels and through that process make connections with other writer–producers, which may yield future collaborations. Yet another variation is artist-toproducer connections where information about other people’s work circulate, much like buzz theory stipulates. The Role of Publishers and Record Companies in Songwriting The description of the networks above suggests that other individuals other than the writer–producer are influential in the circulation of music, either through business decisions or the creative process. Those individuals are usually tied to music publishing companies or the record labels of the performing artists. Many writer–producers are represented by a publishing company. That company mediates between writer–producers and artists; they try to “place” a song with appropriate artists, and they administer the legal rights to songs. It is also quite common that writer–producers use their personal network to find markets for their songs. The Stockholm cluster is dense with music publishers; in fact, the per capita revenue from music publishing is higher in Sweden than in other leading music industry countries, even in the United States and Britain (Braunerhjelm 2009). These publishing companies mainly serve the local need for representation in Stockholm, and many are relatively small. In economic–geographic language, the music industry is vertically disintegrated with small companies

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performing specialized tasks, including publishing. Stockholm-based publishers and their global contact network are at the core of the Swedish music cluster. The example of songwriter Gustav Efraimsson illustrates how this operates. Efraimsson is represented by a publisher called The Kennel. He says The Kennel finds great homes for my songs which lets me focus on my songwriting and producing. Once you start getting cuts it feels safe to have a team behind you that make sure all contracts are in order, the royalties from around the world are coming in and so on. (Don’t Stop the Pop 2012)

As a rule of thumb, early-career writers do not have an extensive personal contact network, so it is important to have an effective publisher. It also takes quite some time for a publishing company to build a network, but the advantage of Stockholm is that as an important, long-established node in pop music, there are numerous publishers with such valuable networks. The publishing segment of the music industry emphasizes face-to-face contact, which reinforces the cluster effect in Stockholm. Efraimsson also points out that when songwriters have been established for a number of years, other people in the music business know who you are and it is less crucial to rely on the publishing company to place songs. Arnthor Birgisson, once tied to Murlyn, says the same thing: “We were fortunate to have connection with people in the industry early on, but if starting out now it would be crucial to have a publisher that helps you fight for your songs and open doors” (Song Summit 2012). Nevertheless, prominent writers and producers often have publishing representation, at least to take care of administrative tasks. Even a successful unit like Wolf Cousins is represented by Warner/Chappell in Stockholm, which is helpful in terms of placing Wolf Cousin songs with prominent artists around the world. Subsidiaries of transnational corporations have a built-in advantage in terms of global networks. Another model is utilized by those at the apex of reputation, such as Max Martin who has his own publishing company MXM. Some business operations combine writing–production space and publishing. Murlyn consisted of several writer–producer teams, multiple studios, and publishing staff under one roof. Usually the need to be close to other agents in the industry necessitates a central city location, but for

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Murlyn, a one-stop-shop headquarters in a semi-rural area outside Stockholm afforded privacy for writer–producers and artists (Niklasson 2004; Lagerström 2004). Most songwriters are represented by a publisher with numerous clients, sometimes as many as 100. Therefore a writer is inclined to follow up with his or her publisher on a regular basis about ongoing opportunities, as well as suggesting artists to whom a new song could be sent. It is likely that writers and publishers are close in space to communicate in person. Artists can consider a song for months, but if ultimately they decline, the song is sent elsewhere. If artists are interested, they are offered a “hold” on a song, which is an option to record within a stipulated period of time. A publisher can influence the songwriting process and even the career of a writer. An example is Savan Kotecha, who first signed a publishing deal in 1999 with BMG in the United States. At BMG, publishing executives sent the young Kotecha to Stockholm “for a crash course in modern pop composing” (Britt 2009). Through BMG connections, Kotecha was introduced to Swedish writers quickly, which profoundly affected his career trajectory. Called “a graduate of the Nordic school of pop songcraft [who] learned at the knee of composer extraordinaire Max Martin” (ibid.), Kotecha ended up living in Sweden for more than a decade. In a similar way, Swedish-born, but American resident since his youth, Adam Anders was sent to Sweden by his then-publisher as a way to capitalize on the explosion of Swedish pop (Music & Musicians 2011). He placed the song More Than That with Backstreet Boys, which led to opportunities in teen-oriented film and television such as Hannah Montana, High School Musical, and Glee. Another type of influencing the songwriting process is when the writer and his publisher decide together which songs-in-progress should be finished and pitched to prospective artists (Don’t Stop the Pop 2012). Sometimes the artist management circulates a song unbeknownst to the writer. If an artist declines a song, the record label might send the song to another artist, and so on. For example, through murky paths, one of Bloodshy & Avant’s songs reached Bryan Adams, who called them personally (which is relatively unusual) with an inquiry. One day later, Bloodshy & Avant were recording with Adams (Niklasson 2004). Such an expedited process was enabled by all involved being in one location (Los Angeles) at the same time.

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Songs circulate to artists through demos. The demo is a soundfile that contains a rough version of the song that has been recorded by the writer– producer. It is not unusual that writer–producers play instruments and sing on the demo. Today, as pop songs are mostly composed on computers, it is easy to produce high-quality demos. As electronic files, they are also highly transferable. Therefore, songs can circulate in unpredictable ways as illustrated in the Bryan Adams case above. Even songs that eventually become big hits are regularly turned down by someone initially and continue to recirculate. Writers often have to cooperate with an artist’s A&R (artists and repertoire) representative. The job of the A&R rep is as a talent scout or, more importantly here, overseeing the development of an existing artist. Occasionally, an A&R is directly involved in the creative process of song development, such as offering advice on lyrics and mixing, or explaining to the songwriter what type of song he is looking for. In the noncreative process, the A&R plays an important role, such as approaching songwriters or select finished songs for inclusion on an album. The separation of influence over creative versus noncreative processes is blurry. An A&R may want the “flavor of the month” style and songwriters then try to achieve that (Bouwman 2009b). The reputation of writer–producers among the A&R representatives is especially important. Those who have acquired a high degree of positive reputation are actively pursued by an A&R. For example, Ariana Grande’s A&R labored for two years to convince Max Martin to contribute to a Grande album. In the end he did, although a determining factor was that Martin’s daughter was a big Grande fan (Greene 2014). Even if the role of the A&R division at a record company is to work directly with writer–producers, others, even the CEO, may also do so. Anders Bagge had a close relationship with the powerful Tommy Mottola at Sony, who took an especially active role shaping the songs of Jennifer Lopez (Buskin 2001). A variation of how artists’ management controls the musical output is via a “call for proposal” procedure. For the second album of the boy band One Direction, multiple songwriters were briefed by manager Simon Cowell on the basic parameters of what type of songs were expected. In the end, the One Direction song search honed in on the Swedish trio Falk–Yacoub–Kotecha as the lead writers (The Independent 2012).

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The Idol Factor One Direction brings us to another, and some would say dubious, form of reputation among the Swedish writer–producers—their close association with “manufactured” boy bands, teen performers, and other lightweight pop. That started with Cheiron creating the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC sound. Writing for female singers with a young audience happened roughly at the same time with Britney Spears. Over the years, Swedish writer–producers have been “type-cast” as the men behind artists like Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, and Demi Lovato. Many are former child actors from Disney and Nickelodeon television shows who transitioned into a singing career. While also a limiting factor for the reputation of many Swedish writer– producers, this association turned useful with regard to one of the biggest pop-culture phenomena of the early twenty-first century. As a musical extension of reality TV, Pop Idol was launched in Britain in 2001. It only ran for two seasons, although its successor the X Factor has been broadcast since. Pop Idol and X Factor use a blend of judges and public voting to determine the winning performers of the show. Simon Cowell, introduced earlier as an A&R for the Cheiron boy band Westlife, was a judge for Pop Idol and subsequently the creator of X Factor. His fame accelerated as an opinionated judge for the American version of Idol, which has aired since 2002. Versions of both Pop Idol and X Factor have been produced in multiple countries. Similar concepts, such as Britain’s/America’s Got Talent, have emerged as well. By the early 2000, an earlier era of boy band pop was fading; instead, Idol and X Factor emerged as saviors for Swedish pop. With Simon Cowell as the primary force behind X Factor and American Idol, Swedish writers now had a new, important outlet for their pop songs. The group Per Magnusson, David Kreuger, and Jörgen Elofsson had been assigned the Westlife account at Cheiron and boy band-style songs fit seamlessly into the new music television concept and its emphasis on the broadest possible appeal. Not surprisingly, Cowell turned to the familiar Swedes. For a number of years, songs performed by contestants were originals written specifically for the show. While this form of television provides a market for pop songwriters, artistically it is rigid and limited to songs that work within the narrow parameters of the format (Bouwman 2009c). More recently the shows have also used cover versions of older pop standards. Particularly Jörgen Elofsson has been the “Idol guy.” In 2002, he had

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three number one hits in Britain and one in the United States, all of which were Idol-related songs. Until 2007, Jörgen Elofsson wrote virtually all the winners’ songs for Cowell’s shows. His resumé includes a total of 17 winners on televised performance contests in multiple countries. Other Swedish constellations have also written for top-tier American Idol artists, such as Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Clay Aiken. The show proved to be the breakthrough for writing newcomers. Just as Elofsson initially was Cowell’s designated writer, Savan Kotecha performed a similar role later. Kotecha remembers streaming Underwood’s winning performance on American Idol with his song Inside Your Heaven live on his computer in Sweden, while eating beans out of a can during his days as a struggling writer (Ingham 2017). Kotecha also acted as a vocal coach for performers on both the British and the American version of X Factor. On the U.K. show, Kotecha worked closely with One Direction as they developed their sound. He says, “when I met them and heard them sing, I pretty much knew it needed to sound like the modern-day Backstreet Boys—guitar pop with Swedish melodies” (Pressparty 2012). The Idol franchise has also been successful in Sweden. Three of the Swedish writer–producers have served as jury members in the Swedish version. Anders Bagge and Andreas Carlsson are arguably better known among the Swedish public as an Idol jury member rather than as professional writer–producers. Bagge and Carlsson’s work together here is not coincidental—they have been connected since the 1990s when Bagge produced Carlsson’s first record. As of 2017, writer–producer Alexander Kronlund is also an Idol jury member. Less successful attempts include a Swedish X Factor featuring Carlsson, and a reality show called Made in Sweden where Idol judges (including Bagge and Carlsson) developed music talents. To conclude, Idol-style television exemplifies a circulatory effect in global culture. The shows were adopted in multiple countries after initially introduced in Britain. This is particularly interesting as American television is usually the progenitor of new entertainment formats. One can easily imagine American Idol winners gaining popularity in other countries, but the band One Direction’s success in the United States is notable because the audience there had never seen the British X Factor from which the band emerged. In fact, One Direction only managed a third place on the show in 2010, but was successfully promoted by Cowell, who integrated X Factor with his music production company Syco, where promising X Factor performers were offered record contracts. Rami

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Yacoub, Carl Falk, and Savan Kotecha were hired to write for One Direction. The band’s first single, What Makes You Beautiful , quickly rose to number one on Billboard. Idol and X Factor are national competitions where the performing artists tend to be nationally based and lacking in global appeal. Therefore, to circulate over longer distances, it is the format more than the artists that diffuses. To circumvent this limitation, Cowell’s strategy had artists on different shows in different countries performing the same song. For example, A Moment Like This was sung by both Kelly Clarkson in the United States and Leona Lewis in Britain. Cowell also put the Pop Idol winning song Evergreen in the hands of multiple artists. As a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s, different artists compete for listeners’ interest and money with the same song at exactly the same time. Clarkson’s version also circulated further as it was popular in Britain and other countries. Swedish Collaboration Style Now, let’s consider culture as an explanatory factor in addition to reputation and interpersonal networks. Pop writing today is a highly collaborative effort and, therefore, it is argued throughout the analyzed data material, well suited to Swedish culture. In fact, a major reason for Swedish success is the propensity to write music as teams (Fryshuset 2016). There are two elements to explore here. First, the process by which songs are created is a collective endeavor and, secondly, for this system to work optimally, the craft of writing and production is learned through mentoring, where experienced and inexperienced writer–producers have a master–apprentice relationship. One common starting point of songwriting is a duo partnership model. As mentioned earlier, Swedish production companies such as Cheiron and Murlyn operated with parallel writing teams. Some writers formalized their relationship and are branded as duos. In the Swedish case, Bloodshy & Avant and Mattman & Robin are obvious examples. At Cheiron, John Amatiello and Kristian Lundin worked together as Amadin. Two recent additions to Wolf Cousins, Ludvig Söderberg and Jakob Jerlström, together use the name The Struts. Outside Sweden, the Norwegian duo Stargate (Mikkel Eriksen and Tor Erik Hermansen) have also been immensely successful. Some of the most famous writers in popular music have worked in tandem; e.g., Lennon-McCartney and JaggerRichards. In today’s pop, the basic song is often composed by one or

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two writers, then a “topline” writer adds “extra” elements to the song. Therefore, songs are often credited to as many as four or five writers. How and why does this model work, and how is it related to the Swedish writer–producer cluster? One argument brought forth in the data is that collaborative writing enhances creativity. It often takes more than one person to innovate or to discard ingrained assumptions of how to proceed in the creative process. Or more informally expressed, it’s good to have somebody to “knock around” ideas with. These synergistic effects would not emerge in individual songwriting. A second important idea about writing together is complementarity. The key to successful collaboration is to combine people who do not have the same skill set—it generates a “balance” in the creative process. In fact, five types of complementarity among Swedish songwriters are identified in the data. (1) One person, often with good technical skills and a DJ background, excels in creating sounds, while the other person focuses on melody making. (2) Two people have different stylistic preferences, such as stripped down versus complex soundscapes. (3) Collaborators have different favorite instruments, which shape how they approach the songwriting process. For example, a bass player may develop the rhythm, while a guitar player develops the melody. (4) Writers from different musical backgrounds can also be complementary, especially as pop increasingly incorporates elements from multiple genres, even in the same song. (5) Finally, songwriters often specialize in either music or lyrics, which necessitates collaboration between two such separate specialists. As established, the basic structure of a song is often written by one or two individuals with add on elements from additional songwriters. In Stockholm, the writers are physically situated nearby, perhaps even in the same studio complex. But long-distance co-writing is also enabled by communication technology, and music files can be sent from Stockholm to other places, and vice versa. Several descriptions in the data bear out both of these characterizations. Additional writers are often approached when the original writers are dissatisfied with one or more song segments. The unfinished song is sent to a writer whose task it is to “solve” the problem by suggesting changes. Max Martin, as a lead mentor, has often performed that role for other Swedish writers. Invitations for input to a song-in-progress are often extended to writers who know and trust each other. In this case, that means the interconnected network of Swedish writers.

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Sometimes writing is less linear than described above and collaborators add pieces together until a song has been built. Consider for example the song Love Me Like You Do sung by performer Ellie Goulding for the soundtrack to the film Fifty Shades of Grey. Ilya Salmanzadeh started the chorus. This required a meeting with the film producers to make sure it worked well with the movie scene where the song would be featured. Max Martin modified initial song elements, and Savan Kotecha wrote most of the lyrics with topline add-ons from Tove Lo. With Ali Payami adding aural solutions as a co-producer, five individuals, all Swedes, were ultimately credited for the song (Cragg 2015b). This method of writing is endemic to contemporary pop, but it also has a Swedish lineage. The Cheironites credit Denniz Pop with fostering an atmosphere of creativity that has been replicated for more than 20 years. Pop handed down his production methods to trusted collaborators who, in turn, developed their own additional styles of writing and production. Moreover, continuously seeking out new talent is derived from Pop. Max Martin has done so mostly, but not exclusively, within Stockholm. Therefore, spatiotemporal continuity of the collaborative approach stretches from Denniz Pop in the 1990s to Wolf Cousins today. Even the physical setup of Cheiron—multiple studios in one space where different people worked as a team—has endured. Both Cheiron and today’s Wolf Cousins are commonly denoted collectives in the media texts. The word collective (kollektiv) is embedded with meaning in the Swedish language. It is frequently used, often in positive terms, to describe macroscale national phenomena such as the welfare state and a societal emphasis on equality, but also to micro-scale collaborative workplace habits. Using a sports metaphor, Max Martin says, it “is more fun when you’re playing on a team” (Gradvall 2016b). Continuous mentoring is key to understanding the longevity of the Swedish cluster. Such connections between individuals are not always symmetric, where equal partners benefit in similar ways. In an industry that places a premium on personal networks, mentoring relationships reproduce knowledge. New Swedish writer–producers are encouraged to spend a lot of time in the studio to learn the craft of programming, production technology, and songwriting. More experienced individuals mentor newcomers for altruistic reasons, especially if somebody else mentored them in the past. As in other industries characterized by constant development of new knowledge and technology, the mentor also benefits as

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the new writer–producer has an intuitive sense of recent trends in music that he or she can share with the mentor. The new writer–producer clearly benefits from contact networks and the opportunities that arise from these relationships. Established writers often invite a new writer into a project that they have been commissioned to do, or to writing sessions that result in songs to be offered to publishers at a later date. This is one of the leading principles of Wolf Cousins. Tove Lo says, “Martin and Shellback will write a song and produce it together with one of these new young writers, which obviously gives us a huge chance to be on a bigger project that we would never get a chance to be on otherwise” (Murray 2014). Junior writer–producers commonly speak to the importance of their mentors. Especially Max Martin is referred to in glowing terms. For example, working with him is like “playing basketball on the same team as Michael Jordan,” according to Savan Kotecha (Schillaci 2013). The Svengali producer At times, media offer a counternarrative to the image of the Swedish writer-producers working collaboratively for the collective good. Portrayed as pulling the strings of inexperienced boy bands, they are instead seen as manipulative masterminds. It is certainly true that many teen artists have little autonomy and creative control, although this relationship between artists and the music industry is hardly unique to Swedish writer–producers. Nevertheless, Max Martin is alternately described as a cartoonish devil hovering behind the shoulder of the performer and, perhaps less sinister, “the Cyrano de Bergerac of today’s pop landscape, the poet hiding under the balcony of popular song, whispering the tunes that have become career-making records” (Seabrook 2015b). A descriptor used in multiple data sources is the Swedish writer–producer as a “Svengali.” The word is derived from a character in the 1894 novel Trilby by French-British author George du Maurier. In the novel, the young woman Trilby becomes a famous singer under the hypnotic influence of her mysterious manager Svengali. The word is now taken to mean a manipulative and dominant individual in control of a performer in the entertainment industries.

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Other Elements of Swedish Culture The previous sections primarily dealt with Swedish writer–producers in global and local networks. There are also distinctly cultural factors that explain the industry cluster. Chapter 1 touched on ideas in the popular imagination about Swedish music that are largely based on clichés, environmental determinism, and other tropes about perceived Swedishness. Several related ideas are also put forth in this data material. Here, I will consider discourses about the connection between Sweden and pop music, Swedish personality traits, gender, and weather. One common discourse is that Swedish writing and production is associated with vaguely positive attributes, especially in comparison to other places. In the language of sports metaphors, Swedish pop scores frequent home runs in the United States while Brits cannot get to first base (Edwards 2000). According to music journalist Sasha Frere-Jones (2009), Sweden also compares favorably to the United States with an “enormous ice pool of Nordic hooks that Americans never seem to match.” For Swedish writer–producers, a national reputation is a branding advantage. When Bloodshy & Avant started to record music with American Andrew Wyatt under the name Miike Snow, it was described as pop “with just the right Swedish je ne sais quoi” and as connected to Sweden, the band had an advantage: “When you have the words ‘Swedish’ and ‘pop’ together in the same sentence, a lot of people are going to be interested off the bat” (Larson 2016). Another playful example of this national reputational effect is when Taylor Swift secretly co-wrote This is What You Came for for Rihanna and DJ/EDM artist Calvin Harris, using a pseudonym. She called herself Nils Sjöberg, which is clearly and identifiably a Swedish name. Sjöberg was quickly revealed to be Swift. When traveling to Sweden, artists are expected to benefit from special qualities associated with the place. Recording in Sweden provides an “international sound” (Adams 2000) that is available “outside the confines of the traditional American borders” (O’Kane 2015). Place reputation means that artists consider Sweden as a site for recordings, but then, as Anders Bagge says, “it’s up to you [as a writer-producer] to prove yourself” (Bouwman 2001). Place reputation, much like its individual counterpart, disseminate almost instantaneously. During the early Cheiron days, Sweden was described as a new Klondike where people came with picks and shovels to dig gold (Lundquist 1999). At that time, there were music studios “on every street corner in Stockholm” although the

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extreme focus on Stockholm eventually receded and only quality writer– producers remained (Song Summit 2012). According to Savan Kotecha, Murlyn as a production company benefitted from Stockholm’s place reputation and it worked with Cheiron “leftovers,” second-tier artists that did not get a contract with Cheiron (Golan 2017). At the time, any Swedish production company was of interest to American record labels who only had superficial knowledge about different Stockholm music actors. Beyond broad perceptions of Sweden as a pop place, there are also personality traits associated with Swedish writer–producers. They are portayed in the data material as keeping a low profile, staying out of the limelight, and even being reclusive. A low profile is partly advantageous in the profession. A producer may not want to attract public attention to himself or his studio when star performers arrive for a session. It is also an unspoken rule that writers should operate in the background so as not to be too closely associated with the songs they provide to artists. It is more common that the producer is awarded a degree of public recognition as a creative person in his or her own right. There are a few examples of Swedish writer–producers who are exceptions to the low-profile rule. This may partly be associated with personality types. Andreas Carlsson often engages in self-promotional activities. RedOne’s exuberant personality has also awarded him a distinct public persona. And those who have been Idol judges automatically acquire a degree of fame within Sweden. Most others, however, are conservative about giving interviews or otherwise appearing in media. Most famous for this behavior is Max Martin, who has gone years between media appearances. This style has also been internalized by some of his proteges. The common interpretation is that this trait reflects a humble mindset and a lack of ego. “I have a tendency to belittle what I do. I think it’s a consequence of trying to keep the ego in check,” says Max Martin himself (Gradvall 2016b). His point is that shunning public attention allows him not to inflate his own considerable success. The presumed lack of ego may then explain Martin’s propensity to surround himself with the best writing and production talent without feeling threatened. These characteristics—to be humble, attract talent, and ability to handle success—is something Martin learned from Denniz Pop (Sveriges Radio 1999). It is also possible that Martin’s hesitancy toward media in particular is an outcome of feeling underappreciated, especially at home in Sweden, due to a perceived journalistic bias against commercial pop (Gradvall 2016b). This is reminiscent of the

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“ABBA debate” that occurred in Swedish media and society during the 1970s about the social value of commercial pop music (see Arvidsson 2008). From a once-outsider’s perspective, Savan Kotecha says “the lucky thing about the Swedes—you don’t get that ego. Which is why Max has been able to stay so successful for so long because other people get hits and it goes to their heads and…they want all this stuff and then you never hear from them again” (Cragg 2015a). RedOne—also cognizant of, and assimilated to, Swedish ways—says that always having both feet firmly rooted on the ground, and the realization that nobody’s special, are attitudes he learned from years in Sweden (Granström 2010). Whether consciously or not, RedOne paraphrases the pan-Scandinavian concept of Jantelagen, which is a social norm that governs people’s behavior and approximately means “don’t stand out or think you are better than somebody else.” Originally derived from a 1933 novel (A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks by the Danish–Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose), Jantelagen is now thought to describe Scandinavian collective habits in general. At first glance, not standing out seems antithetical to many aspects of the entertainment industry. But as described above, the virtue of modesty may actually be a key to understanding the longevity of the Swedish cluster in general, and Max Martin’s productivity in particular. Many voices in the data also attribute success in writing and production to a particular work ethic within the Swedish cluster. This involves working in the studio every day, as well as spending that extra time on a song for continuous improvement. Arnthor Birgisson suggests that these traits may be associated with individuals as much as culturally determined: “I’ve learned from other guys to do that” (Song Summit 2012). Another form of learning born out of local circumstances—the small-scale music industry in Sweden—is that producers never had readily available assistants. You had to do everything yourself, which is the best way to learn studio skills, according to both Andreas Carlsson and Peer Åström (Bouwman 2009c; Hampp 2015). A related effect is that in a limited market for live music, touring is not as extensive as in the United States and “the studio thus becomes the creative forum” (Braunerhjelm 2009, p. 396). These factors may explain the suggestion from British commentators that Swedish producers perfected the modern demo—they deliver master-quality work, and also very quickly (Edwards 2000). How do these patterns of labor compare to other places? In Stockholm, “people tend to talk less and do more,” says Jörgen Elofsson (Lindvall

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2008). This is in contrast to a stereotype of Americans who are overtly positive after a quick recording session: “It’s a smash!” according to Savan Kotecha, himself an American. Instead he learned in Sweden: “Work at it, work at it, work at it” (Lindvall 2010). And the productivity of recording sessions is enhanced in Stockholm where international artists come with a focus on work, compared to the United States where the producer may have to wait up to a week until the star performer shows up at the studio (Player FM 2015). According to RedOne, however, a similarity between Sweden and one location in the United States, Nashville, is that Swedish studio work is professional and “not about the hype. It’s almost like Nashville: They work hard and spend hours and years to perfect this craft, but it’s not about just wanting to be famous” (Nelson 2016). Writer–performer Laleh adds about Swedes in the studio, we don’t have time for rudeness. We don’t care what’s at stake, you always keep your calm and you’re always respectful to everybody. Sometimes this business can be really aggressive. Kicking people out of the studio or yelling, but we always keep our calm…It’s a very safe environment. (Wass 2016)

Multiple comments in the data suggest that these traits also affect the business of music. The global industry uses Swedish writer–producers not only because of the capacity to deliver quality work through good work ethic, but also as they are “nice people.” Murlyn’s business profile was, according to Avant, Swedish in that it was based on trusting people and being accommodating (Niklasson 2004). Savan Kotecha sums up: “I lived in Sweden for a long time, so I believe in the ethics of Swedish people, I find the way they do business quite fair” (Ingham 2017). The Nordic countries are known for a relatively high degree of gender equality. Recent rankings have placed Sweden as the fourth or fifth most equal country in the world (United Nations 2016; World Economic Forum 2017). Has that spilled over into equality in music writing and production? The answer seems to be no. The business of songwriting and production is highly gendered in several respects. Especially production, as a technical field, has traditionally been virtually all male. Rami Yacoub acknowledges that producers constitute a grabbgäng — one big group of guys (Sveriges Radio 2013). The informal Swedish word he used implies male comradery that excludes women, and also suggests a

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level of immaturity in gender relations. Robyn also experienced the atmosphere at Cheiron as tough in a masculine way and dominated by inside jokes (Sveriges Radio 2008). The studio then becomes a distinct male space. The experience of Nanna Martorell, who both writes and produces music, is that studios can be littered with old pizza cartons and porn magazines, which makes women uncomfortable (Roney 2008). Male producers also recognize that the studio has an adolescent atmosphere. It is a place where you play video games between recording sessions, or just hang; it is sometimes described as a big playground (Sveriges Radio 2012). Sophia Somajo, one of the new Swedish women in production was frustrated that men were expected to do all the technical work in the studio; therefore, her solution was to set up a home studio instead (Höglund 2017). As an illustration of sentiment that is not very open toward women’s participation, Andreas Carlsson says “female newcomers are the hardest ones to deal with” [my transl.] (MittMedia 2016). In songwriting, the involvement of women is more substantial, but there are still significant gender distinctions. Women are expected to write lyrics rather than the music. This role is based on two assumptions. First, lyrics express emotions through language and therefore viewed as an appropriately female contribution to the songwriting process. Secondly, many artists are women, and women writers can add a purportedly female perspective to the narrative of a song (Buskin 2001). Swedish writer–producers often collaborate with female lyricists from English-speaking countries. Even so, Swedish men often write songs for female artists, both lyrics and music. Max Martin and other Swedes have had great success doing so. The list is long: Pink, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, and others. Many of the performers can be characterized as female empowerment pop stars and role models for a young audience. The result is that men in their 40s write for young female artists and express “their” feelings in the songs (McNulty 2015). (As discussed in Chapter 4, it is also common that songs are co-authored by the artist and the professional writer.) Savan Kotecha says that when tasked to write for young women, he reads magazines like Cosmo and Marie Claire to absorb a supposedly female perspective (Cragg 2015b). Such an admission may not enhance the composer’s authenticity, but that is of little concern under these circumstances. Of course, young female pop stars are rarely expected, or allowed, to write their own songs; therefore, they are the customers of pop writers in general, whether Swedish or not.

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Belatedly, it is recognized that more women are also needed on the non-lyrics side of music making. Max Martin says, “it sucks that there are so many men in my profession” (Gradvall 2016b). There are now women—such as Laleh, Tove Lo, and Sophia Somajo—in the Wolf Cousins collective and in Martin’s MXM publishing company. One thing they usually have in common is an artist career, or aspirations thereof, and that there is still an emphasis on songwriting rather than production. Many of the producers that emerged in Sweden came from a DJ background. The number of female DJs have increased over time. From once being almost exclusively male, Öström (2011) reported that Stockholm DJs were approximately one-fourth to one-third female in 2011. This improves the recruiting pool, but has yet to translate into women producers. The last theme to address in this section is popular environmental determinist perceptions, which assumes that the physical features of a place determine the patterns of cultural development. In interviews, Swedish writer–producers frequently have to respond to “Why Sweden” questions and suggestions from journalists that allude to weather and other natural phenomena. Perhaps exasperated with such questions, Andreas Carlsson says sardonically that “it’s in the water—Björn and Benny peed in it” (Hampp 2015). At other times, the writer–producers themselves express determinist explanations for the Music Miracle 2.0. Obviously, such assertions cannot explain Stockholm’s success vis-à-vis, for example, Oslo or Helsinki, although it offers some insights into how the writer–producers themselves think about their creative activity. The most common association is climate. As the weather is frequently “terrible,” people stay inside for long periods of time. This is assumed to enhance creativity as much time is spent on work-related activities. For example, Axwell of the Swedish House Mafia says his creativity peaks during days of rain as it is mysigt (approximately, cozy) to sit by the computer and work. Prolonged periods of chilly precipitation also aid in the development of new songs and ideas. Axwell acknowledges that the late spring is a creative period too, triggered by increasing light and budding nature replacing a dark and melancholic winter (Dernulf 2013).

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Bamse Johansson (2012) suggests that Swedish artists use extra-musical associations to highlight discursive connections to local culture. Here, this is exemplified by the name Wolf Cousins, which is a translation of vargkusinerna, characters from the Swedish cartoon Bamse. Bamse has been in production since the 1960s, both in print and on television, and its style is educational and subtly ideological where communal values are at the forefront. The origin of Bamse associations in Swedish music goes back to Denniz Pop, who arranged a day of playful competitive activities every year among music industry people in Stockholm, where the winner received Bamsebucklan—the Bamse Trophy (Sveriges Radio 2008). Moreover, the name Shellback is a translation of the turtle Skalman, another iconic Bamse figure. The Skalman character is an inventor and a technical genius with the propensity to take long naps. Shellback, the producer, is known to fall asleep in the studio, which earned him his nickname (Gradvall 2016b).

Productivity associated with the Swedish climate is sometimes contrasted with that of other places, particularly the warm climates of Los Angeles and Miami. There, to paraphrase characterizations from Swedish writer–producers in the data material, you “never get any work done.” The reason seems to be the vacation-like experience of traveling there, even if it is for work purposes. The ability to, for example, ride in a convertible enjoying the sun is experienced as distracting. It places the creative person in a situation outside everyday life. The latter is associated with the yeoman-like activities of music making, while the former is not. This response to place and creativity may diminish over time as a writer–producer travels more frequently to places like Los Angeles and the dichotomy between ordinary Stockholm and sunny Los Angeles diminishes. The Role of Stockholm Virtually all Swedish activity associated with globally connected songwriting and production takes place in Stockholm, while earlier Swedish rock music thrived in the periphery as well (see Fig. 1.1). From a network perspective, Stockholm is Sweden’s media and music industry center that draws people from all over the country. From a cluster perspective, Stockholm is large enough to have agglomeration advantages, but small enough that everybody knows each other in an industry such as music. This is

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important in the cultural industries where information circulates quickly as buzz and the constant search for new collaborative efforts necessitates face-to-face contacts. Stockholm appears to be in a “goldilocks” position in terms of size—not too big, not too small. Avicii’s former manager and co-writer Ash Pournouri lauds the relative smallness of Stockholm’s music industry, making network effects “fantastic” in a place where things get done quickly (Milne 2014). Economist Braunerhjelm (2009) finds a blend of competition and cooperation in Stockholm as well as a reputation for openness, informality, and lack of hierarchy within the industry. There are also important practical factors, such as the Stockholm airport, which is Sweden’s premier transportation gateway and its only international air hub. Stockholm’s moderate centrality in international travel was sufficient enough not to be an obstacle when its reputation surged, as this anecdote illustrates: A high-strung songwriter at Murlyn Music in Stockholm told Thomas Mottola, the powerful chairman of Sony Music, that his nervous system couldn’t take flying to New York to play his latest pop piece. No problem, said the famously short-fused Mottola. Instead, the Sony boss flew to Sweden. (Morais 2001)

As reported earlier, the propensity for people in the American music industry to fly declined after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; but by 2008 The Guardian wrote that the stars again come to the Swedish music makers, not the other way around—“Stockholm is the new Mecca” (Lindvall 2008). This corresponds to a second peak period of the Swedish Music Miracle 2.0 (see Fig. 3.2). After the circulation of a demo and preproduction meetings between artists’ management and writer–producers, artists often travel to Stockholm for songwriting and recording sessions. International visitors say that Stockholm offers them a new creative space, new dimensions to their music compared to the United States, and a useful contact network for the future (Nelson 2015; Daily Mail 2010; Kawashima 2015). If a Stockholm session resulted in an unfinished song, it may be sent to collaborators elsewhere, or Swedish writer–producers and the artists travel to complete a recording elsewhere, which is often Los Angeles, or occasionally London. In general, it is more common that minor or mid-level artists make the trek to Stockholm compared to top-tier stars.

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Writer–producer Arnthor Birgisson suggests that an advantage of Stockholm is that artists simply like to travel there (Song Summit 2012). It is a city with a lively core and a European sense of place. Most of the music industry production spaces are located in the city center with easy access to restaurants and entertainment after work. While that may describe other Nordic and European cities, in combination with existing music industry agglomeration effects, the Stockholm advantage is significant. Only writer–producers for whom this locational advantage is not an overriding concern operate from suburban locations at some distance from city center Stockholm. Jörgen Elofsson and Peer Åström are two such examples. There are also infrastructural reasons why Stockholm excels as a central hub in the global music industry network. Stockholm was recently ranked as the second most important hi-tech region in the world, after Silicon Valley (Davidson 2015). Some innovations are related to music, such as the music streaming giant Spotify. Spotify is one of five Stockholm “unicorns,” tech companies valued in excess of 1 billion USD. (The others are Skype, the parent companies of the video games Candy Crush and Minecraft, and the payments service company Klarna.) The file-sharing websites Pirate Bay, Kazaa, and uTorrent were also founded in Sweden. Connections between technology and the music industry mean that Sweden is considered a “crystal ball” for the new music industry (ibid.). To further such connections, Stockholm is the site of the Brilliant Minds Conference organized by Daniel Ek (Spotify’s founder) and Ash Pournouri. Pournouri says that as one of the innovative centers in the world, there is no need to move from Stockholm to Los Angeles or London (Sveriges Radio 2015b). Writer–producer Andreas Carlsson recently returned from Los Angeles to Stockholm because of its creativity, vital infrastructure, and as it is a hub for tech companies, innovation, and great producers (Hampp 2015). While tech phenomena like Spotify only intermittently connect with the songwriting–production system in Sweden, they are in some ways two sides of the same coin. Since the 1990s, the Swedish government has invested heavily in communications infrastructure and even subsidized personal computer purchases. With some of the best broadband capacity in the world and an emphasis on telecommunications, Sweden is well positioned to engage in technical aspects of the music industry and to be centrally located in the global circulation of popular culture. The technical focus in society means that knowledge of music production programs

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like Logic and ProTools is widespread. As a continuation of traditional music schools (see Chapter 1), music education now incorporates the use of laptops in music making and songwriting. From Stockholm to Los Angeles and Back Again Swedish writer–producers are increasingly based in Los Angeles, which suggests a gravitational pull over time to the main industry center. However, the relationship between the two places, as a well as other nodes in the music industry, is complex and dynamic. The typical pattern for the spatial behavior of writer–producers is an original emphasis on Stockholmonly work. Then, as their contact network expand, more business trips to Los Angeles occur. As they became more frequent, some Swedish writer– producers establish second residencies in Los Angeles and periodically travel back and forth between the two cities. The next step is to relocate to Los Angeles and make it a permanent place of residence, although contacts with Stockholm are almost always maintained. This may be followed by a return migration to Stockholm. By the early 2000s, especially as Cheiron and other companies in Stockholm started working with well-established performers, not all steps of the production process took place in Stockholm. One increasingly common practice was to produce music tracks in Stockholm, while vocals were added in the United States (Hampp 2015). This coincided with the increasing reluctance by American music actors to fly to Europe, as well as expanded broadband capacity that enabled the flow of information over the internet. Variations of split recording sessions have continued since then. For example, Katy Perry’s 2013 album Prism was partially recorded and produced in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California with Dr. Luke, but also in Stockholm with Max Martin, Klas Åhlund, and Bloodshy. As many albums involve a large number of producers and writers, spatial patterns of production can be complex involving not only Los Angeles and Stockholm, but also New York and London. The actual relocation by Swedish writer–producers to Los Angeles happened over time. An early example is Andreas Carlsson, who forged strong working relationships with American writers and artists at a relatively early stage, and moved there around 2003. Swedish media reinforced the public perception of this migration with “at home with Andreas Carlsson” stories featuring his opulent Hollywood home. He, and others since then, established convenient home studios, which has increasingly become the

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norm as recording equipment is less space-demanding and less costly than in the past. Savan Kotecha also relocated (or as an American, more correctly returned) to the United States. Kotecha’s career turned toward the United States when he wrote Inside Your Heaven, a hit for 2005 American Idol Carrie Underwood. That reputational inroad to the U.S. market led Kotecha and his Swedish wife to move to Los Angeles. However, during a transition period when developing songs for One Direction, which was a U.K./Sweden-based production process, Kotecha spent months at a time in Stockholm. After One Direction (the band is now defunct), a more permanent home in Los Angeles was, in part, a way for Kotecha to distance himself from his boy band reputation (Golan 2017). But an L.A. location hardly means a clear break with Stockholm. Kotecha as a topline writer now sends lyrics and melodies to Swedish collaborators, such as Ilya Salmanzadeh and Peter Svensson, or they send music tracks that he works off (Triumf 2015). Another strategy, as practiced by Bloodshy, is to relocate to Los Angeles but keeping an existing studio in Stockholm, which allows for seamless movements between the two places (LED 2013). The reversed strategy is exemplified by Rami Yacoub who, after leaving Maratone around 2007–2008, spent most of his time in L.A. and even built Kinglet Studios there. Nevertheless, he considered his “base” to be in Sweden writing together with other people, then “pitching” the songs to artists, and even record, in Los Angeles (Bouwman 2009b; Thyrén n.d.). A seminal moment of the Los Angeles trend was Max Martin’s move in 2013. Before that, Martin divided his time between Los Angeles and Stockholm. But after months in L.A. hotel rooms, a permanent home seemed more attractive. His house is outfitted with six recording studios where Martin and his collaborators work. The home studio spaces have the appearance of regular living rooms, lacking large mixer boards that dominate traditional studios. From there, he continues to work with and mentor many writer–producers from Sweden, or those connected to the Stockholm songwriting community. Martin’s daughter goes to school in L.A., while as a family they spend summers in Stockholm. Martin says that one consideration for moving to Los Angeles was so that his daughter could experience a new culture and learn a new language (Sveriges Radio 2015a). This propensity for writer–producers to travel back and forth between Stockholm and Los Angeles is consistent with the space of flow concept. Some have dual residency while others move their primary place of

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residence with some frequency. For example, Jörgen Elofsson made a partial move around 2008–2009 to Santa Monica where he stayed for a few months at a time. His other home is in the upscale Stockholm suburb Lidingö, where his wife and child live. The objective was to establish himself in the United States in a way he had not before. But the move remained partial as he only brought his family with him to Los Angeles from time to time. Previously, Elofsson worked closely with Simon Cowell, and Sweden’s closeness to Britain made it an ideal location. But Elofsson said that American pop felt “fun again,” which is a reference to how music style swung back toward melodic pop. Working with major artists who are hesitant to travel to Sweden also provided an impetus (Lindholm 2008). The move paid off; in 2012 Elofsson co-wrote a number one U.S. hit, Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You). But in his case, there were limits to how much time he was willing to spend in the United States: “I´m in LA all the time, but I don´t want to move there, I have a little daughter and I want her to grow up in Sweden” (Swedish Songs 2011). The reference to family matters are, in fact, common in the data material. The older generation of Swedish writer–producers were typically born during the early 1970s. More recent additions to the Swedish cluster are approximately a decade younger. In either case, many of them are in a stage of life where they are raising children with their spouses, which in part determines spatial work patterns. Carl Falk, after primarily working in Los Angeles, moved back to Stockholm in 2011. At the time, he and Rami Yacoub took over A Side Productions in Stockholm. Working for British-based One Direction also favored a European location (Nylin 2012). But having a child makes 9–5 work in Stockholm more desirable for some. He says—paraphrased from a Swedish-language interview—that even 10 days away is hard if you have a family, and the goal is to travel less over time. He conducts as much work as possible in his studio in Stockholm, which fits his lifestyle (Sveriges Radio 2012). Today, some writer–producers have more or less permanently returned to Stockholm. Andreas Carlsson was a returnee circa 2013. After having been L.A.-based for years, he cited in part family reasons for the return. His musical work also focused on a New York Broadway show with Cirque de Soleil, while having declining success as a Los Angeles songwriter. A return to Stockholm also allowed Carlsson to capitalize on his domestic high profile as an Idol judge in Sweden. The other Swedish writer–producer turned Idol judge, Anders Bagge, decided to leave for Los Angeles in 2015 to return to the global songwriting business after a

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Swedish-based music career (Tavér and Edstrand 2015). However, Bagge is again back in Stockholm and the Idol show. There are other nodes than Stockholm and Los Angeles in which people and music circulate. Except for a minor role of East Asia, which is dealt with in Chapter 4, the only places discussed in the data set are London and New York. London is the primate city of British popular music and culture. Therefore, it is a place where writer–producers meet with and occasionally record artists, most of whom are British. Especially the collaboration with Simon Cowell has made London a key point in the Swedish writing and production system. Data from the Official Charts Company, which is Britain’s leading compiler of music charts (similar to Billboard in the United States), shows that A Side Production had three of the 10 bestselling singles in Great Britain from 2000–2010 (Olsson 2010). They all emerged from Cowell’s British Idol/X Factor projects. Other Swedish writer–producers have also had one foot in the British pop music scene for a long time. Christian Wåhlberg, once the co-owner of the Murlyn production company, continued to work as a manager for writer–producers and says that “England is the best country for finding interesting people who have the skills and dare to be different. As England is just two hours away from Stockholm I thought, ‘Let’s find someone to work with in England’” (Blumentrath 2011). His recent endeavors are based in Stockholm but with satellite office space in London. The Swedish connections with New York are also long-standing. Max Martin’s early excursions in search of inspiration during his “doldrums years” focused on New York. As an East Coast city, it is far more accessible from Stockholm than Los Angeles and it is certainly an important music industry center, especially for artists with a base in the eastern United States. Producers and artists like Dr. Luke and Lady Gaga were incorporated into the Swedish sphere of influence in New York. The latter emerged as a bestselling performer in collaboration with RedOne, who is an exception among the Swedish writer–producers in that he initially migrated to New York rather than Los Angeles. There, his manager introduced him to an unknown and unsigned New York native, Lady Gaga. Together they developed the successful Lady Gaga sound. Lately, however, the centripetal forces of Los Angeles were too strong for RedOne as well; since 2010 he has been Los Angeles-based.

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The Need for Proximity Due to the collaborative nature of songwriting and production, the small size of “firms”—a writer–producer more or less operates as a single independent contractor—and the knowledge-intensive and relatively timesensitive exchange of information, the industry thrives on physical proximity. The points of contact among actors can be formal or informal in nature. The former, often based on reputation, involves arranged meetings, whether in an office or studio setting or in more relaxed ways, such as the ubiquitous business dinner. Informal contacts include serendipitous meetings at social gatherings, parties, music venues, the sharing of studio space, and so on. Much of this can be understood as a buzz creating process about the creative capacities associated with different writer–producers. Both Stockholm and Los Angeles are endowed with contact spaces for writer–producers. Stockholm is quite small compared to Los Angeles. The city has approximately 1 million residents, while the metropolitan region has 2.3 million. The music industry community is sized correspondingly and the adage “everybody knows everybody” is certainly applicable. A British journalist who interviewed Swedish soul artist Seinabo Sey also observed the social life of Stockholm music insiders: “Everyone I meet this evening seems to know everyone else, everyone is collaborating with someone else here. If this is an accurate representation of Stockholm as a city, the reasons behind its creative successes suddenly become obvious” (Down 2014). The data material offer ample illustrations of how the contact network operates. Individuals are often connected via mutual friends or acquaintances. Information about different writer–producers and their musical styles and preferences flow through the local network and lead to productive match-ups based on compatibility. For example, the artist Robyn’s collaboration with producer Klas Åhlund started when common friends in Stockholm music circles suggested that they should work together (Ericsson 2008). Collaborations happen organically through daily conversations, meetings, or contacts via friends of friends. The studio space performs a narrower but equally important role of promoting interaction. Writers, producers, artists, and A&R representatives co-mingle here resulting in songs for sale being played and deals initiated. Projects are set in motion by events as simple as music spilling over into an adjoining room in a studio complex. For example, that describes

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Taylor Swift while recording in a Stockholm studio knocking on producer Ali Payami’s door, which eventually resulted in the two making the Swift song Style (Sveriges Radio 2015a). Among Swedish writer–producers, proximity also promotes collaboration. This happens on a city-wide and microscale level. On the one hand, writer–producers move back and forth between studios in Stockholm, soliciting input on improvements to unfinished songs (Song Summit 2012). Multiple perspectives are usually beneficial compared to isolated songwriting. This could be done through global networks, but face-to-face collaboration is often more efficient. The ease of movement throughout central Stockholm allows for this form of continuous contact. Figure 3.4 shows the distribution of music industry enterprises in central Stockholm. There is no distinct concentration, although most locations are within half an hour’s reach via foot, subway, or taxi. On the other hand, collaborations are enhanced by studio complexes that house a number of interconnected writer–producers. The “under one roof” system

Fig. 3.4 Distribution of music firms in central Stockholm (The map shows all firms that are members of Export Music Sweden and with an address in central Stockholm [according to the organization’s database at exms.org])

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is primarily practiced by Wolf Cousins. It promotes not just collaboration, but also the aforementioned mentoring of younger members in the collective. Physical closeness, whether within one building or not, also encourages much-needed socialization. Shellback and other writer–producers have met on Wednesdays over a glass of Chartreuse, Shellback’s favorite French liquor. The group rotates between six or seven different bars in central Stockholm (Gradvall 2016a). The buzz argument suggests that such nonwork activities are also needed for the dissemination of information and the promotion of interpersonal contacts within an industry. Some careers are the result of unintentional interactions in public spaces. The rise of DJ/EDM performer Alesso is such an example. The father of Swedish House Mafia’s Sebastian Ingrosso frequented a Stockholm café where Alesso’s girlfriend worked as a barista. Alesso at the time was an unsigned DJ, but a conversation at the café resulted in that a CD with Alesso’s work was delivered to Ingrosso’s studio. Two days later Alesso was invited to record there, which started his career (Natt och Dag 2015). For Carl Falk, the corresponding encounter involved a woman on a bus in Stockholm who worked at the Warner/Chappell publishing company. She recommended Falk to Andreas Carlsson and Kristian Lundin at The Location. They promptly signed Falk and shortly thereafter one of his songs was acquired by Cowell’s band Westlife when the Brits visited The Location’s Stockholm studio (Wallgren 2015). All interactions described above took place in Stockholm. Depictions of spaces and patterns of personal interactions in Los Angeles are both similar and different. Near identical instances of A&R rep’s meeting writer– producers happen here as well (e.g., Bloodshy & Avant became Britney Spears’ long-term producers after such a chance studio encounter). The difference is that such fortuitous events are more likely in Los Angeles. The city may be much larger than Stockholm, but so is the music industry, and industry people tend to frequent a limited number of social spaces. “You bump into artists at every restaurant,” says Rami Yacoub (Bouwman 2009b). Such opportunities can turn into writing and production work very quickly. Los Angeles is also home to premier artists in a way that Stockholm cannot match. Max Martin started working with Katy Perry after she auditioned for him in Los Angeles, which probably would not have happened if he maintained a Stockholm-only presence (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016). The data material cited above suggest that the making of pop music requires face-to-face interaction, from the planning stages with business

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meetings between writers and artists and their managers, to the actual writing and recording process. However, there are examples where communication technology facilitates personal meetings and the transfer of music files over long distances, although it hardly amounts to “the end of space.” Rather, communication technology should be considered supplemental in terms of the spatial arrangements of songwriting. Semifrequently, songs are being written over the internet with somebody else around the world. Bloodshy & Avant, when working with the American singer Andrew Wyatt under the band name Miike Snow, send music files back and forth between their residences in Stockholm, New York, Los Angeles, and even Bangkok (Hausmann 2016). Not just music files can be transmitted, but visual communication software like Skype are substitutes for face-to-face interaction. When Shellback collaborated with American Benny Blanco, who is currently considered one of the world’s leading pop producers, on Maroon 5s 2011 hit Moves Like Jagger, the song started with Shellback playing a melody segment to Blanco via Skype. This communication method was used in the initial stages of the writing process as Shellback preferred to be Stockholm-based. Later, Shellback and Blanco entered a studio in Los Angeles to finalize the writing and recording. Blanco and Shellback has engaged in Skype collaboration in other projects too, such as She Doesn’t Mind by Jamaican artist Sean Paul (Tingen 2012). Electronic communication is also useful for minor song inputs. For example, when Mattman & Robin needed ideas during the production of Selena Gomez’s song Hands to Myself, they sent the song file to Max Martin and he responded with multiple voice memos to illustrate ideas which were eventually incorporated into the song (Kheraj 2016). Under these circumstances, the artist and writer–producer may not actually meet. RedOne co-produced the hits Starships and Pound the Alarm for Nikki Minaj but never worked with her in the studio (Nelson 2016). The teen-oriented musical television show Glee illustrates not just the collapse of space but also how time management is handled via intercontinental communication. Adam Anders, as the executive music producer of the show, work with Peer Åström on Glee. He describes starting his workday in Los Angeles with a Skype call to Åström, who works from Sweden. They discuss song mixing, which was done by Åström in Sweden during the night (Los Angeles time). Then changes are made at Anders’ home studio before vocals are added by the cast later in the day at the Glee studio in Hollywood. Those soundfiles are subsequently uploaded

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to Åström, who finalize production and mixing. “Then we start all over again. It’s like Groundhog Day,” says Anders (Music & Musicians 2011). This method allows for a 24-hour production process when the time schedule is tight. Because all involved use the same technology (the music software ProTools), compressed data files rather than actual, and extensive, audio files allow moderate-sized information—a few hundred megabytes—to be transmitted with ease. To some extent, telecommunications allow Stockholm-based writer– producers to be well connected globally. Those who for personal reasons like to reside in less central locations can also work as songwriters. Niclas King works from the central Swedish town of Örebro and commonly delivers his songs via the internet (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2012). On the other hand, King is not a top-tier writer; work from a peripheral location is arguably less suitable to those with more extensive and prominent international collaborative networks.

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Lindvall, H. (2010, November 11). Behind the music: Who’s the guy with the silly wigs on The X Factor? The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/ music/musicblog/2010/nov/11/behind-music-x-factor. Accessed August 9, 2018. Lundquist, A. (1999). Jörgen Elofsson: Från radiojingel till hitsingel. MI: Musikindustrin, 41, 13–14. McNulty, B. (2015, October 17). The backroom magician who put pop on top; Swede Max Martin has had more top ten hits than Elvis. Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk. Accessed June 16, 2017. Milne, R. (2014, October 25). The Spotify effect. Financial Times, p. 22. MittMedia. (2016, September 29). Andreas Carlsson från Idol-Juryn pratade inför Dalaföretagare [Video file]. http://play.mittmedia.se/video/andreascarlsson-fran-idol-juryn-pratade-infor-dalaforetagare?html5=0. Accessed April 21, 2017. Morais, R. (2001). Ikea Soul. Forbes, 168(3), 47. Murray, N. (2014, October 15). How Tove Lo became Sweden’s darkest pop export. Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/howtove-lo-became-swedens-darkest-pop-export-20141015. Accessed August 7, 2018. Music & Musicians. (2011). Adam Anders. http://mmusicmag.com/m/2011/ 08/adam-anders. Accessed July 28, 2017. Natt och Dag, N. (2015, April 1). Alesso om dödsmisshandeln som förändrade hans liv. King Magazine. http://www.kingmagazine.se/artiklar/lasning/ 20150401/alesso-om-dodsmisshandeln-som-forrandrade-hans-liv. Accessed March 7, 2017. Nelson, J. (2016, July 6). Producer RedOne dishes on recruiting J. Lo and Ryan Seacrest for his music video, working with Michael Jackson and more. People. https://people.com/celebrity/redone-star-studded-dont-youneed-somebody-video-michael-jackson. Accessed July 14, 2017. Nelson, M. (2015, March 26). 30 Essential Max Martin songs. Stereogum. https://www.stereogum.com/1788251/30-essential-max-martin-songs/ franchises/ultimate-playlist. Accessed July 19, 2017. Niklasson, Olle. (2004). Bloodshy & Avant. Studio, 3, 20–25. Nöjesguiden. (2015, March 24). Tove Lo ger en annan bild av perfectionism. http://ng.se/artiklar/tove-lo-ger-en-annan-bild-av-perfektionism. Accessed August 1, 2018. Nylin, L. (2012, March 28). Fyra snabba med USA-ettan Carl Falk. MI: Musikindustrin. https://www.musikindustrin.se/2012/03/28/fyra_snabba_ med_usa_ettan_carl_falk. Accessed June 16, 2017. O’Kane, J. (2015, August 15). She really really really really really really wants to; Four years after Call Me Maybe, Carly Rae Jepsen is ready to shake off the one-hit wonder label. Toronto Globe & Mail, p. R1.

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Olsson, C. (2010, January 20). A side productions och Jörgen Elofsson bakom förra decenniet största hits i Storbritannien. MI: Musikindustrin. http://www. musikindustrin.se/2010/01/20/a_side_productions_och_jorgen_elofsson_ bakom_forra_decenniet_storsta_hits_i_storbritannien. Accessed July 11, 2017. Öström, A. (2011). Testosterontechno. Bang, 3. http://www.bang.se/ testosterontechno. Player FM. (2015). Anders Bagge om karriären och sitt livsverk Dreamhill [Sound file]. https://player.fm/series/artistcoacherna/19-anders-bagge-omkarriren-och-sitt-livsverk-dreamhill. Accessed July 15, 2017. Pressparty. (2012, March 29). Pressparty chat to songwriter Savan Kotecha about One Direction, The X Factor and the music business. https://www.pressparty. com/pg/newsdesk/londonnewsdesk/view/43749. Accessed July 16, 2017. Roney, M. (2008). Hiphop dansmusik. Sonic, 40, 60–63. Schillaci, S. (2013, February 6). Meet Savan Kotecha: The man behind One Direction’s rapid rise to the top. Hollywood Reporter. http://www. hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/one-direction-meet-man-rapid-418682. Accessed June 16, 2017. Seabrook, J. (2015a). The song machine: Inside the hit factory. New York: W. W. Norton. Seabrook, J. (2015b, September 30). Blank space: What kind of genius is Max Martin? New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culturalcomment/blank-space-what-kind-of-genius-is-max-martin. Accessed August 7, 2018. Sheridan, E. (2012, July 17). ‘I want to mix it up’: Why DJ Alesso is the next big thing in dance music… and even Madonna has noticed. Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2174993/WhyDJ-Alesso-big-thing-dance-music–Madonna-noticed.html. Accessed March 7, 2017. Song Summit. (2012). In conversation: Arnthor Birgisson [Video file]. Interviewed by Richard Wilkins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= i6jkDdc_b8I. Accessed August 7, 2018. Sveriges Radio. (1999). Svenska Hitmakare—Max Martin [Sound file]. https:// sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/690774?programid=4918. Accessed August 8, 2018. Sveriges Radio. (2008). Cheiron – en Popsaga [Sound file]. P4 Stockholm. https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=103&artikel=5472825. Accessed August 1, 2018. Sveriges Radio. (2012, October 16). Vaken med P3 och P4. Hitmakaren Carl Falk hälsar på i Vaken [Sound file]. P4 Stockholm. http://sverigesradio.se/ sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2689&artikel=5312179.

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Sveriges Radio. (2013, November 7). Han är låtskrivaren bakom världstjärnornas hits [Sound file]. P4 Stockholm. http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx? programid=103&artikel=5697306. Accessed December 4, 2017. Sveriges Radio. (2015a). Arvet efter Cheiron—en oändlig historia med Max Martin [Sound file]. https://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/688146?programid= 4918&groupid=22737. Accessed August 1, 2018. Sveriges Radio. (2015b, July 9). Sommar: Ash Pournouri [Sound file]. http:// sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/571824?programid=2071. Accessed December 4, 2017. Sveriges Utbildningsradio. (2012). Musik på export—så gjorde vi. Episode of series UR Samtiden - Musik som slår [Sound file]. http://urskola. se/Produkter/173083-UR-Samtiden-Musik-som-slar-Musik-pa-export-sagjorde-vi. Accessed April 21, 2017. Sveriges Utbildningsradio. (2016). Max Martin master class. Episode in series UR Samtiden - Polarprissamtal 2016 [Sound file]. http://urskola.se/ Produkter/196363-UR-Samtiden-Polarprissamtal-2016-Max-Martin-masterclass. Accessed April 23, 2017. Swedish Songs. (2011). Jörgen Elofsson interview. http://www.swedishsongs.de. Accessed June 15, 2017. Tavér, H., & Edstrand, M. (2015, December 17). Han har skrivit åt Celine Dion och Madonna—nu hyllar Bagge Ö-vik: “Navet i svenskt låtskrivande.” Allehanda. https://www.allehanda.se/artikel/angermanland/ornskoldsvik/ han-har-skrivit-at-celine-dion-och-madonna-nu-hyllar-bagge-o-vik-navet-isvenskt-latskrivande. Accessed June 9, 2017. The Independent. (2012, April 3). One Direction—But where next? Writers battle to create boy band’s next hits, p. 8. Thyrén, P. (n.d.). Carl Falk & Rami Yacoub. STIM: Svenska Tonsättares Internationella Musikbyrå. https://www.stim.se/sv/intervjuer/carl-och-rami-blevetta-i-hela-varlden. Accessed June 16, 2017. Tingen, P. (2012, June). Benny Blanco. SOS: Sound on Sound. https://www. soundonsound.com/people/benny-blanco. Accessed July 19, 2017. Triumf, K. (2015, May 27). Värvet International with Kristoffer Triumf [Sound file]. #28 Savan Kotecha. http://podtail.com/podcast/varvet-international/ 28-savan-kotecha. Accessed August 19, 2018. United Nations. (2016). Human development report 2016. New York: UN Development Programme. Wallgren, M. (2015, August 17). Tillfälligheter blev Carls lycka. Dagens Nyheter. https://www.dn.se/arkiv/familj/tillfalligheter-blev-carls-lycka. Accessed June 16, 2017. Wass, M. (2016, April 8). Laleh on new music, being a female producer & working with Max Martin. Idolator. https://www.idolator.com/7629136/lalehinterview-female-producer-new-music-max-martin. Accessed July 12, 2017. World Economic Forum. (2017). The global gender gap report. Geneva, Switzerland.

CHAPTER 4

An Analysis of Swedish Pop Music

Abstract This chapter explores the styles of Swedish pop music. Through hybridity and circulation, Swedish pop is part of a globalized culture, while also retaining elements that are uniquely Swedish. First, the Cheiron studio developed a production style that can, broadly speaking, be considered a Swedish sound. Since then, Swedish elements to songwriting include an analytical or “mathematical” approach, as well as a strippeddown, simplified sound. Swedish pop is influenced by genres traditionally popular in Sweden, although genre crossing is also common. While global popular music trends evolve in unpredictable ways, Swedish writer– producers have had a discernable impact on those trajectories, in terms of circulation across space and time. Keywords Music hybridity · Songwriting · Swedish pop music · Circulation of music styles

While Chapter 3 focused on individual hitmakers, this chapter delves deeper into the music itself. The combination of circulation and reputation informed the analysis in Chapter 3. Here I suggest that the notion of hybridity (and partly circulation) demonstrates how Swedish-made pop songs have incorporated the expectations of the global music industry and markets, while also retaining elements that are uniquely Swedish. The chapter explores how the best practices of songwriting and production

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circulate between Sweden and other important nodes in the music network. Using the same data material from media sources as introduced in Chapter 3, the process by which songs were written and produced is investigated here. The analysis also includes how the songwriters themselves, as well as media, describe song elements, such as melody and sound, and how they may be understood as having Swedish elements. As this chapter discusses a large number of individuals, I encourage the reader to return to Table 3.1, which contains short bios of each writer– producer.

The Songwriting Process Before addressing the key question—“What is distinctly Swedish about Swedish pop music?”—the reader should be familiar with the general songwriting process. Some aspects of songwriting are similar to past popular music practices. In other ways, writing is now made to fit technological developments and contemporary spatial structures within the global pop music system. In the former case, the data describe the origin of a song as the public often imagines creativity to unfold: the idea may come to the songwriter in middle of the night, while driving the car, in the shower, or during walks. Other writers appear to be more predisposed to scheduled creativity and ideas emerge out of studio work. The latter may be two or more writers and artists working together to purposefully develop a song. That process is distinctly less “romantic” and more yeoman-like; sitting in a drab room together and working on musical ideas. The space may be a studio complex as it has the advantage of readily available instruments and recording equipment. One thing that virtually all songwriters agree on, though, is that writing is an obsession. Ali Payami says, “sometimes when you make a song that’s not quite there yet and you can’t figure out what’s off about it, you can’t sleep until it’s solved. It doesn’t leave my mind until it’s done” (LeDonne 2017). Over time, technology has at least partially transformed the creative process. The recording of musical ideas has become progressively easier. Max Martin says that he sang the first segments of Britney Spears’…Baby One More Time (recorded in 1998) quietly into a Dictaphone tape recorder late at night, so not to wake up his wife (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016a). Today the ubiquitous cell phone is used, not only to record and store ideas, but also to disseminate them with collaborators instantaneously without the friction of distance. Ariana Grande’s song Problem

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started as an audio note on Savan Kotecha’s phone where he whispered the phrase “one less problem,” which became the song’s unorthodox chorus—the verse and pre-chorus build-up suggest an explosive chorus but instead it drops down into a whisper (Kheraj 2016). The writing of a song can begin with either lyrics or music. Which comes first usually depends on the preference of the writer. If a song is lyrics-based, the first step is often to develop a song title or a catchy phrase. Those word(s) may constitute the “hook” that the song revolves around. A hook is a song element that stands out to the listener; the most memorable combination of words, sound, or chords, often as part of the chorus. Subsequently, the rest of the song is constructed. For the lyrics-first writer, words inform what the music should sound like. Among collaborating songwriters, the process follows a certain division of labor. For One Direction songs, Savan Kotecha created an interesting title and a rudimentary melody. After that, co-writers Falk and Yacoub fleshed out lyrics and musical arrangements, moving toward the song’s final form (Burger 2012). Many lyrics-based hooks are inspired by the writer’s own life. For example, the hook in Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger is “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” The phrase is based on advice that the mother of the co-writer Ali Tomposi told her before a scheduled writing session. Tomposi, who was a rookie writer at the time, thought “Jörgen is not gonna like it” (Waterman 2013). Nevertheless, she tried out the concept. The senior collaborator Jörgen Elofsson did like it and the song reached number one on the U.S. Billboard singles chart. Another similar example is Savan Kotecha’s writing of One Direction’s What Makes You Beautiful , which was conceived in a London hotel room. The melody had been in place for a year but his wife, who was accompanying him, “was having a bad morning. She was like, ‘Oh, I feel so ugly’ and I was like, ‘No, you look beautiful. You don’t know how beautiful you look’” (Schillaci 2013). Any fan of One Direction recognizes those words as the song’s hook. Subsequently, the thematically similar line “The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,” stored in Kotecha’s phone, was also incorporated into the song (Unterberger 2017). In the music-first scenario, the preferred instrument of the writer influences the song. The main division is between writers who use keyboards and those who use guitars. Computer-generated rhythms may also be a starting point for songwriters, especially in topline writing where the first

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writer creates a beat and basic chord progressions. Such a song framework is delivered to topline writers who add melody and lyrics. The median time of song completion is approximately a week, but the variation mentioned in the data is substantial. RedOne wrote songs with Lady Gaga extraordinarily fast, about one song per hour (Sveriges Radio 2013a). In other cases, writing can exceed months. It is not unusual that song fragments are left unfinished only to be completed months, or even years, later. Unfinished songs are kept in a “raw material storage space” to be fetched when needed, says Bloodshy & Avant (Niklasson 2004). The writing process involves, to different degrees, the artist. The professional songwriter and the artist may sit in the studio negotiating the evolution of a song. The level of artist input during the production process varies. Madonna is at one end of the spectrum, interested in the slightest detail and she is described as a “superboss” even in the laborious mixing phase (Amster 2012). Other artists are less interested in participating and tend to accept a song as delivered to them. Songwriters have mixed feelings about artist input. One common occurrence is when inexperienced artists want to contribute to the songwriting, especially on a second or third album. “People suddenly become writers when they’ve never written before, and that can create difficulties,” says Anders Bagge (Northern Lights 2001). Established artists may demand song credit after having only slightly modified a song (Dahlblom 2002). The infamous adage in the music industry is “change a word, get a third.” Co-credit results both in enhanced authenticity and enhanced monetary compensation for the artist through royalties. The contract between the songwriter and the artist may even specify that the artist has to be included in the writing process (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2012). As suggested above, a songwriter sometimes writes on commission. Then the writer and the artist must frequently reconcile different opinions and perspectives. Top-tier songwriters often get a lot of personal time with the artist, while lower-rung writers do not. Having been in the latter position, Tove Lo says her method is to Google the artist and seek out interviews that give her a sense of the artist’s personality (Sanchez 2016). Anders Bagge compared the job to that of a tailor, stitching together a song that fits the artist (Northern Lights 2001). Andreas Carlsson offers Katy Perry’s Waking Up in Vegas as an example: Perry wanted to convey a distinct narrative through the song and “I could help her tell her story while we were writing it” (Aldén 2015). Max Martin concludes on the dynamics of artist vs. writer–producer that “songs were not only reshaped

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for the artists who recorded them, but reshaped by those artists [and ultimately] the songs shaped those artists, too” (Nelson 2015). In some cases, songs match an artist’s persona. RedOne’s co-writing with Lady Gaga exemplifies this type of write-to-suit; in Lady Gaga’s case, her outrageous fashion style, empathy for the outcast, and ambiguous sexual identity. It should be noted that Lady Gaga was not only an equal partner in the writing process, but she has been a songwriter for other artists as well (Stutz 2016). Similarly, Shellback sketched out the template of Pink’s hit So What while the artist herself later personalized the song— Pink was separated from her husband at the time, which is reflected in the lyrics—and Pink is co-credited as a composer. Both Lady Gaga and Pink’s songs are hybrids of professional songwriting and artist input. As discussed above, there are different levels of artist involvement in the writing process. Klas Åhlund wrote Piece of Me for Britney Spears in the style of an open letter on her behalf about anxieties associated with being a public figure. The song gained traction as shortly after its release, Spears suffered a well-publicized personal crisis that seemingly was anticipated by the song (Sveriges Radio 2013b). This is an example of a song that was personalized for the artist, which in the case of Spears had been discouraged until then. Having personalized lyrics written for them does not work for all artists. Taylor Swift’s transition from mostly self-written material to those co-authored with pop producers (e.g., Max Martin and Shellback) raised concerns about authorship. In the singer–songwriter tradition, author and personalized lyrics are intimately intertwined. Therefore, Martin and Shellback as “corporate songsmiths associated with the ‘manufacturing’ of pop success” was problematic for Swift who had to find “continued authorship, origin stories that she can reveal in interviews and which fans can use to separate Martin’s contributions from her lyrics” (McNutt 2013). Whether or not a song describes an artist’s personality or life events, the artist commonly specifies to the songwriter certain attributes a song should have or objectives that the song should fulfill. Bloodshy & Avant say that after delivering the first version of a song, they continue to snickra on the song until both they and the artist have a product that they are satisfied with (Almegård 2009). The Swedish word snickra can be translated as “to craft something.” Derived from carpentry, the word implies using tools and material—such as hammers, nails, and lumber—to put physical objects together. Andreas Carlsson similarly positions himself and his

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work using the phrase låtsmed (“song smith”), which suggests that songwriting is, in the eyes of the writer, a craft (MittMedia 2016). Craft stands in opposition to mass production. The former represents individuality and artistic impulses, while the latter is associated with musical homogeneity and repetitive forms of labor. Max Martin says, “sometimes you hear rumors like ‘They’ve figured it out!’ But it’s not like that. It’s about understanding and learning, putting a toolbox [my emphasis] together” (Stutz 2017). Again, using craft metaphors, “they” are the Swedish writer–producers who have “figured out” the successful method of making pop so that it can be continuously replicated. The quote suggests that Martin rejects the mass production perspective. However, in the Cheiron method, passed down over time, songwriters are assigned different parts of a song to work on in an assembly-style way; choruses can be taken from one song and moved to another; and a bridge or a hook may similarly be swapped. For example, the hit One Thing by One Direction was spliced together from two songs literally the day the band recorded it: the verse of one song and the chorus from another (Cragg 2015a). One of the writers (Martin Eriksson, known by his nom de plume E-Type) at Denniz Pop’s Cheiron studio describes the pattern of work there in this evocative manner: I get this feeling of a big painter’s studio in Italy, back in the fourteenhundreds or fifteen-hundreds. One assistant does the hands, another does the feet, and another does something else, and then Michelangelo walks in and says, ‘That’s really great; just turn it slightly. Now it’s good; put it in a golden frame, and out with it. Next!’ (Seabrook 2015)

In sum, contemporary songwriting cannot be easily described as either craft or mass production. It has elements of both models.

What Is Swedish Pop? The process by which songs are written, as described above, seems spatially indifferent; that is, done in the same manner irrespective of where it takes place. However, a central question in this monograph is whether there is a distinct Swedish pop aesthetic. The answer may be that there is not one such aesthetic that all Swedish writer–producers adhere to; however, there are commonalities that reoccur with some regularity. There

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are also a set of ideas associated with Swedish pop music, propagated by media discourses as much as directly evident in the song structures. As argued in Chapter 2, the global circulation of music does not necessarily result in homogenization. In fact, local differences are imperative to the global flow of culture; they are endemic to globalization. At the same time, there is a “tug of war” between central control of cultural production and the continuous challenge of the status quo from various locations in the global network of culture, always creating new, hybrid outcomes. Stockholm is such a production node and the Swedish “sound” a potential hybrid outcome. The Cheiron Sound as Swedish Sound Because of the early dominance of Cheiron and its connection to most subsequent Swedish writer–producers, the Cheiron style initially became synonymous with Swedish writing and production. Cheiron used the same sounds repeatedly. They were recognizable and even formulaic. Those within the production company even anthropomorphized the sound as the “Cheiron man.” Andreas Carlsson jokingly says, we tried to nip him in the bud, but he always showed up (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2011). The Cheiron sound can be described in different ways and as incorporating different elements. One of the first examples of the early Cheiron sound was the young singer Robyn. For her, Max Martin introduced his trademark “big synth chords” (Cragg 2015a). Due to their success, Backstreet Boys further defined the Cheiron sound, which was then recycled for other Cheiron artists, such as NSYNC. A variation was Britney Spears’ bubblegum pop, largely devoid of the boy bands’ R&B influences, and built around a single female voice rather than male harmonies. A leading Cheiron sound element is the emphatic chorus. The style resembles hard rock of the 1980s (e.g., Def Leppard, Scorpions, Van Halen, and Europe). The inspiration undoubtedly came from Max Martin and other Swedish writer–producers with a background in the genre, who then adapted that chorus style to pop. Secondly, the vocals are equally “big.” This is accomplished through the layering of vocals; that is, the superimposition of multiple recordings of vocals. Thirdly, the drum sound is commonly perceived as one of the most distinct Cheiron element. As an onomatopoeic approximation one may call it “splashy,” although it is electronically derived rather than characterized by the analog sound of

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real drums. Finally, at least some of the Cheiron artists aspired to emulate American R&B, emphasizing a funky bass. However, it was done to suit Swedish pop sensibilities that made for a mechanical and bouncy rhythm (Nelson 2015). All elements were eventually combined with “ABBA’s pop chords and textures,” according to journalist John Seabrook (2015). Not just the sound, but also Cheiron’s song structures were similar. The typical song relied on a quiet beginning with conventional chorus and verse. Subsequently, the intensity progresses, resulting in a “tense, slow-building verse leading into the explosion at the chorus, and the quiet-loud-quieter-louder structure” (Nelson 2015). Part of this structure is the middle-eight Cheiron invention; a “breather” where the music slows before the chorus comes back again in full force (Cragg 2015a). In music theory, the middle-eight is a type of bridge, which is a section of a song that breaks with the general melody and structure of the song. The middle-eight term refers to its placement in the middle of the song— such as after two verse–chorus pairs—and consisting of eight bars (bars are musical notation measurements; segments that songs are divided into). In this section of the song, the chorus may also include a “b-hook” that is catchy and noticeable, but in a slightly different way than the preceding hook (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2011). Cheiron reused sounds and song elements that were successful, both when an artist returned for a second album or used interchangeably among its recording artists (Sveriges Radio 2008). Rami Yacoub says the sound was not preplanned: At Cheiron, we’d dress the songs into whatever production we felt like, and it happened to become the Cheiron sound. It’s nothing we thought about, but you end up with a formula. Little by little you have a red thread running through all of the songs, because you’re using the same samples or same sounds. (Bouwman 2009b)

Cheiron established a “monopoly” on its sound and artists came to Stockholm for it. Other producers certainly attempted to copy the sound, but it was hard to emulate (Björkmann 2000). In artistic endeavors, being “formulaic” is derided, but Cheiron admits to its approach as hypercommercial. At the same time, the group also retained full control of the production process. Cheiron’s positioning at the intersection of artistic control and commercialism is not new in popular music. Perhaps the

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best historic example would be the legendary producer Phil Spector (see Moorefield 2005). Later, Swedish writer–producers copied themselves. Especially One Direction’s What Makes You Beautiful from 2011 was influenced by Cheiron productions of the late 1990s in that the music followed the same melodic structure and the beat focused on big drums. “We opened up the Cheiron sample library that we have and started to play around with some sounds” and after What Makes You Beautiful was successful, we “went even more 90s” with the follow up single One Thing, according to Carl Falk (Rosenbloom 2012). Analytical Songwriting In addition to the sound, Swedish pop writing is thought of as precisionoriented and analytical in style. Its origin is again Cheiron. Jörgen Elofsson describes how he learned to be critical and analytical; song elements were always interrogated at Cheiron. Are they useful or can they be removed? The work was analytical, unlike intuitive and emotional songwriting, which is perceived as more artistic (Dahlblom 2002). Combining precision-style with adherence to a formula, the Swedish way of writing songs is considered scientific or mathematical. Journalists write about Swedish “pop music as particle physics—every song an equation” (Fennessay 2016). The characterization is also adopted by writer– producers themselves, such as Ali Payami who compares his work to that of a scientist who conducts experiments and always questions assumptions in order to make progress (LeDonne 2017). Most famously, Max Martin is associated with the concept of “melodic math.” Pop artist Ariana Grande says about Martin, “he’s like a mathematician. He knows music like math. It just makes sense to him” (Kheraj 2016). Explanations of melodic math varies. Simplicity is one element: “There should be no more than three to four parts to the song melodically,” according to Savan Kotecha (Cragg 2015b). At the beginning of a song, the method first employed by Denniz Pop was to capture the listener immediately. Paraphrasing him, Martin says the audience should recognize a song after one second (Gradvall 2016b). The introduction is followed by “delayed gratification” where a song builds up an expectation in terms of what comes next. That is fulfilled by continuous escalation in the tension of the song (Natt och Dag 2013). A good example is Kelly Clarkson’s song Since U Been Gone (written by Max Martin and Dr. Luke)

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that opens up “with a repeated single-note guitar riff, it sits in suspended animation for just that bit too long, the perfect example of delayed gratification…When the chorus does eventually thunder in…it’s the perfect crystallization of pent up aggression,” according to the Guardian (Cragg 2015b). The relationship between chorus and verse is also important. Max Martin has multiple “theories” about how the two interact. One theory is the need for balance within the song: “If the verse is a bit messy, you need it to be less messy right after. It needs to vary. Shake It Off [the Taylor Swift hit] is a good example, where the math behind the drama is pretty clear” (Gradvall 2016b). Each chorus could also be slightly variegated to keep the listener’s attention. Alternatively, the verse and chorus can have the same melody, which is what Martin calls the Prince method (e.g., the 1979 Prince song I Wanna Be Your Lover) (ibid.). Arnthor Birgisson, trained in the Max Martin school of songwriting, points out that elements of the chorus are taken from the preceding verse, so when the listener hears the chorus for the first time, it already seems familiar (Song Summit 2012). For example, Martin used this trick in Robyn’s Do You Know (What it Takes) (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016a). While Birgisson admits that there is a mathematical foundation to songwriting, lyrics and melody also have to come together, which necessitates some deviation from the “model” (Song Summit 2012). In several instances above, there is frequent repetition within a song. In fact, repetition is a recipe for hits. Especially the hook can be repeated in order to captivate the listener (Sveriges Radio 2013c). Swedish electrosoul artist Seinabo Sey acknowledges the influence of her producer in the design of repetitious hooks: That’s really the producer Magnus Lidehäll…I had very little knowledge about structure. I never thought about it in that way or that there was a theory to it…he cuts it up in a computer and says, ‘Can you see now that there’s a point of having the same melody here as there?’ (Kheraj 2014)

On the surface, the analytical approach suggests complex song structures. The math part of melodic math leads one to believe that complexity is favored among songwriters because math is experienced as complex by many. However, analytical Swedish pop commonly aims at the opposite, a minimalistic sound—a “less is more” approach. An idea again derived from Denniz Pop is that it is much harder to construct simple songs than

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complex songs. Max Martin still contemplates “what would Pop do” during composition and especially his rules about simplicity (Sveriges Radio 2008). Others at Cheiron also learned to remove unnecessary song elements. Per Magnusson contends that their approach was different and ahead of its time, as 1990s’ pop was often “overproduced” (Bouwman 2009c). Subsequent Swedish writer–producers also subscribe to the idea of simplicity. Shellback believes that advanced death metal, his first foray into music, is comparably easier due to the lack of rules; instead, pop is far more challenging to write despite its on-the-surface simplicity (Gradvall 2016a). Savan Kotecha takes a similar position, stating that the goal is to make songs sound like anyone can write them, while in reality it is actually quite difficult. According to RedOne, the writer must peel off everything that is not needed in a song (Wolk 2012). The more complex it is, fewer listeners will be able to relate to it (Sveriges Radio 2013a). At least partially implicit in the arguments above is that simplicity is driven by commercial aspirations. However, writer–producers like Bloodshy & Avant, who also profess to be minimalistic songwriters, are considered to have an avantgardistic approach to dance music (Karlsson 2010; Niklasson 2004). The most recent constellation with a less-is-more sonic ideology is Mattman & Robin. They worked on Imagine Dragons 2017 album Evolve to achieve a more austere sound compared to the band’s previous efforts (Swift 2017). Imagine Dragons described the Swedes as “very minimalistic,” which turned out to be advantageous as the album was a commercial successful (Kennedy 2017). For Selena Gomez’s Hands to Myself and Me & the Rhythm, Mattman & Robin worked with Max Martin to combine “muted minimalism with [Martin’s] signature focus on big pop melodies” (Munhall 2015). As pop styles are cyclical and melodic math was associated with the Cheiron heritage, some Swedish writer–producers have come to reject the analytical style. According to Bloodshy & Avant, a generational gap exists between new and old Britney Spears productions, where the new (that is, by themselves) is more beat-oriented. As a thinly veiled reference to Max Martin’s melodic math, Bloodshy & Avant claim to be open to melodic alternatives other than predetermined structures, such as hooks that sound like a hard rock melody. From their perspective, a song is ruined by an “obligatory” soaring chorus (Niklasson 2004).

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Today, Max Martin partially rejects the notion that his writing is based on a mathematical formula; instead, he prefers the metaphor of a “toolbox” for different “problems” that arise when a song is under construction. A song often originates from “pure” inspiration, but during the actual writing, the toolbox—a set of prescribed ways of doing things—is useful, which is where the melodic math reputation comes from (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016a). Needless to say, not all songs rigidly follow the same pattern. But as Martin admits to, “the theories are great to have on hand when you get stuck” (Gradvall 2016b). Melody-First Songwriting Swedish-style songwriting is commonly structured around the importance of melody. Not only are Swedish pop songs frequently described as melodic, but the writing process also revolves around the melody. Carl Falk says that Swedish writer–producers “love melodies and nice chord changes” (Sherwin 2012). The opposing (American) rhythm-first style is the other major school of contemporary pop songwriting (Wolk 2012). In that case, the writing process starts with an instrumental beat, then hooks, top-line melodies, and lyrics, each added by a specialist songwriter. The two writing styles usually result in songs with different character. To precisely demarcate a Swedish and a non-Swedish style is certainly an overgeneralization. Perhaps Klas Åhlund arrives at the right balance when he finds commonalities within Swedish pop music: “to say the style…is definitively Swedish would be outrageous considering the wide array of influences exhibited in all their works, but the constant remains a stunning capacity for melodies that grab you within a few seconds” (Blistein 2013). Åhlund’s argument implies not only melody but also immediacy. Andreas Carlsson has a similar opinion: “I like songs that are very direct. I want every kind of music to be instant” (Soundgraphics 2012). Even when Swedish writing and production expand beyond its pop core, melody is at the forefront. The Swedish song and performing rights organization STIM awarded Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub its songwriter prize, the Platina Guitar Award, in 2013 with the motivation: With playfulness and astonishing breadth, they command the entire spectrum of modern popular music. From guitar driven teen pop for One Direction to club music hybrids like Nicki Minaj’s Starships …Carl

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Falk and Rami Yacoub manage and renew the strong Swedish melodic tradition. (Nylin 2013)

Sweden is also a “hotbed for electro artists who manage to combine their homeland’s melodic tradition with a more forward-thinking production style,” according to American music journalist Jon O’Brien (2014). Artists, writers, and producers in that category include Robyn, The Knife, Lykke Li, Tove Lo, and Bloodshot & Avant. The related EDM genre is also connected to the national melodic tradition. Swedish DJ/EDM artist Alesso, describes his music as “euphoric, uplifting and Swedish” (Fayle 2015). As EDM developed a mainstream audience in Sweden, and Europe in general, Swedish artists in the genre wrote for a home audience that desired vocals and melody, while Americans preferred “hard and monotonous stuff” (Nordström 2013). The collaboration between RedOne and Lady Gaga also combines dance music and melody-oriented pop. RedOne, as a Moroccan active in Sweden during a long period of time, represents an “international style” of pop music, which stresses easy to relate to harmonies and lyrics. The 1980s European pop that he heard when growing up had a major influence on him (Karlsson 2010). And as a soccer fan, RedOne has also written the official songs for the World Cup and the Spanish club Real Madrid. He explains that writing accessible songs for a sports market is similar to imagining the audience at a pop concert singing along to a hit (Stutz 2014). Lyrics in Swedish Pop Music English proficiency was highlighted in Chapter 1 as a factor behind the Swedish Music Miracle; however, the fact that Swedish writers–producers are not native English speakers has had a profound impact on how they approach lyrics. One result is predictably simplistic lyrics. However, a more interesting outcome is that vocals are treated more as an instrument rather than a carrier of textual meaning. Klas Åhlund suggests that the process of listening is different for those who do not have English as a first language (Blistein 2013). The words in English-language pop songs are partially received as sounds, which predispose Swedish songwriters to approach lyrics in an integrative way. First and foremost, the objective is to find the right sound of lyrics so they fit the pattern of a song. “It explains why Swedes can so comfortably

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meld their own melodic tendencies with British and American pop,” says Åhlund suggesting a distinct form of hybridity (ibid.). When Max Martin writes songs, he knows what they should sound like, more so than what the lyrics should convey. Co-writers then have to conjure up reasonable lyrics that fit Martin’s desired sound. In his opinion, a good melody can be ruined by bad sounding lyrics (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016a). Poor composition, syntax, and grammar are less offensive. Great lyrics consist of “words that don’t get in the way of a melody,” according to Savan Kotecha, who considers himself a Max Martin disciple (Cragg 2015b). The fact that Martin employs lyrics as a tool to serve the melody explains how he (and many of his compatriots) eschew rap, which is antithetical to this type of Swedish approach to pop music (Nelson 2015). Swedish songwriting in English is straightforward rather than poetic. Jörgen Elofsson says he actually admires Björn Ulvaeus’ ABBA lyrics, which are universally regarded as overly simplistic (Dahlblom 2002). The reason relates to what RedOne observed: “Outside the US or England people cannot deal with too many lyrics. They just want a nice melody and a smart catchy simple line, where they can sing along—the simpler the better, especially in the chorus” (Blumentrath 2009). Swedish–Moroccan RedOne is especially cognizant of the preferences and limitations of international audiences and shapes his songs accordingly. But ironically, language constraints may partially explain Swedish success. As pop thrives on simplicity, Swedes write “oh baby” type lyrics without hesitation more easily than native English speakers (Edwards 2000). Nevertheless, the outcome is sometimes awkward lyrics. A 2014 Slate magazine article analyzed the entire collection of Max Martin songs to unveil examples of peculiar grammar and syntax. It concluded that “a look back through the Martin catalogs yields a veritable treasure trove of lyrics that your third-grade English teacher would shake her head at” (Berman 2014). Aware of their strengths and weaknesses, Swedish writers commonly “outsource” lyrics to British or American colleagues, although that method also has its problems. On writing songs in Sweden, Savan Kotecha says: I probably ruined a lot of [songs] with really bad lines whereas if I was in the States and around Americans we could have bounced lines around and someone would have said ‘that’s not cool’. In Sweden they were like ‘you can do the lyrics because you know English’. (Cragg 2015b)

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Syllables are often meant to fit the rhythm of the song with less concern about whether the resulting words make sense (Seabrook 2015). One of the most infamous cases of unorthodox lyrics is Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way, which was written by Andreas Carlsson and Max Martin. The lyrics were improvised and nonsensical, designed to sound good with the music. The result is confusing and contradictory (Hunt 2017). For example, different variations of a verse were tried during the writing session with the final wording being “Am I your fire, your one desire,” which, as seemingly a question, begs an answer, but it is followed by the disconnected declaration “Yes I know, it’s too late, but I want it that way” (see Bouwman 2009a). Backstreet Boys’ record label recommended another lyricist (Mutt Lange, producer of Def Leppard and Shania Twain) who flew into Sweden to develop a second version of the song. Ultimately, the band preferred the original “Swedish” lyrics (Aldén 2015). The stated reason was the better rhythmic feel (van Luling 2016). After the song’s success, Andreas Carlsson noted that, “a lot of record companies were like ‘we want songs with mysterious lyrics’ like I Want It That Way” (Aldén 2015). Other artists are less thrilled about “mysterious” lyrics. Ariana Grande’s Break Free by Max Martin and Savan Kotecha contains Martin-style English. “I fought [Max Martin] on it the whole time,” says Grande. She told Time, “I am not going to sing a grammatically incorrect lyric” but Max said, “It’s funny—just do it!” Ultimately, Max Martin got his way (Kheraj 2016). Martin’s influence is not only felt in terms of what the artists sing, but also how. His musical background as a singer makes it important for him to coach the vocalist during a recording session. For example, Backstreet Boys were coached to use loud rock vocals—Martin’s personal preference—rather than singing in a “soulful” way that was the boy band’s inclination (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016a). Artists are sometimes also asked to replicate Martin’s vocal on the demo version of a song. A case in point is Britney Spears low pitched “Oh baby, bay-bee,” which is a recurrent line in …Baby One More Time. Spears’ vocal delivery is not only said to resemble Martin’s demo (which is not publicly available), but it also has a noticeable Swedish inflection (Seabrook 2015). The melding of melody and lyrics is also evident in the songwriting process. Songs in an unfinished state may substitute actual lyrics for vowel sounds (Seabrook 2015). Klas Åhlund compares the process of

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improvising vowels to fit the melody and then filling in lyrics to solving a Sudoku puzzle (Sveriges Radio 2013b). Shellback also utilizes the Swedish songwriting method of working with nonsense lyrics when developing a melody. Random words, he contends, can bring out the melody and a good hook in a song. The line Moves Like Jagger emerged that way through a nonsense demo version, but the words sounded “hooky” and Shellback and his co-writers kept them as the title to Maroon 5’s hit, which greatly contributed to the song’s appeal. It is important that correct vowels match the right notes; hence, the importance on nonsense lyrics throughout the demo version of Moves Like Jagger. The demo included the lines “Just tell me the stars, if you feel like, and tell me the Lars, if you know right. Just tell me the Lars, and tell me the nars, and tell me the cars” (Gradvall 2016c). Those lines were replaced in the final version of the song. Genre Influences in Sweden As Connell and Gibson (2003) note, the popularity of certain genres and songs varies from place to place. A song can reach the top of the charts in one country, while it may remain obscure in another, even if those countries are quite culturally similar. What this means is that the musical influences of artists and writers–producers are place-based. As music circulates globally, it not only becomes popular in a specific location, but that style is transformed in that place as local musicians and listeners absorb it based on their own experiences and taste preferences. Through this process, styles of music become “indigenized” (Carosso 2013). In Sweden, several genres of relevance for the writing–production cluster exemplify an indigenization process: 1980s “synth pop,” Eurovision Song Contest music, hard rock, and club-based dance music. “Purely” Swedish traditional folk music has also influenced Swedish pop. The Swedish writer–producer generation was steeped in the 1980s’ music. However, their influences are different compared to someone living in the United States at the same time. Especially British “new romantic” or “synth pop” gained popularity throughout the western world at the time, but arguably more so in Sweden than in America, where that style shared the listeners’ attention with radio-oriented classic rock and “urban contemporary” (the marketing term for music derived from the rhythm and blues and soul tradition). British synth pop artists—like Depeche Mode, Human League, Duran Duran, and Ultravox—used new

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synthesizer technology in music. This sound was also incorporated into mainstream pop at the time. These influences play a role in pop music today. Arnthor Birgisson says that his songwriting is inspired by the 1980s music, especially the hooks of that period (Song Summit 2012). As Canadian pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen wanted to explore pop of the early 1980s, her management “sent her to Britain and Sweden to work with the producers who first honed those sounds” (O’Kane 2015). RedOne expresses an affinity for the era as well, which is evident in the production value of his songs: “I love ‘80s music…It’s all about emotions, and the chorus elevates you” (Martens 2009). The Eurovision Song Contest, on the other hand, is a multi-decade phenomenon that spans generations and has spawned a certain form of pop music. Some elements of Eurovision have been internalized by Swedish writer–producers even if the influence is rarely acknowledged. In production since 1956, Eurovision (called Melodifestivalen in Swedish) is the longest running television program in the world. It consists of nationally televised music competitions (in a sense, a precursor to shows like Idol) where one song is selected to represent each country. Eurovision then culminates in a continent-wide, evening-long show where a winner is crowned. Eurovision is arguably more popular in Sweden than elsewhere.1 It is the most watched program in the country with up to 85% of all television viewers tuning in (Eurovision World 2016). Sweden has also had great success with six wins over the years, second only to Ireland. Swedish entries, even songs that only appear in the national contest, inevitably receive much radio play. Considering Eurovision’s tremendous track record, it would be impossible for the event not to have had at least some impact on Swedish writer–producers. What Eurovision-style elements may have filtered into Swedish songwriting? One previously identified “formula” on how to write a hit involves immediacy: the audience should find a song memorable only after one exposure. This ideal corresponds very much to the Eurovision approach. By their very nature, Eurovision songs are designed to have an immediate effect on the listener as the contest winner is determined by an international jury during the course of an evening. A distinct song element commonly associated with Eurovision is the key change, to the 1 The 2019 event was viewed by 26% of the Swedish population. That can be compared to the main European markets: Germany 10%, United Kingdom 10%, France 7%, Spain 15%, and Italy 4% (author’s calculation based on Eurovision World 2019).

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point that it is considered cliché (although an effective one). That has not stopped Swedish songwriters from using it. A typical pattern is found in Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way, which slows down late in the song only to have the chorus come back with renewed intensity, including “a hysteria-inducing key change” (Cragg 2015a). Eurovision’s performance-oriented song style has also filtered into contemporary pop writing. One noticeable element is the acceleration toward a crescendo at the end of a song—to “go out with a bang.” Writer– producer Alexander Kronlund points out that many pop hits often have such an ending: the songwriter imagines the artist performing his or her song on stage in a triumphant ending pose (Sveriges Radio 2015b). As an example, NSYNC’s Cheiron produced Its Gonna Be Me has a “confettifalling-from-the-ceiling climax” (Nelson 2015). Most Swedish writer–producers are hesitant to admit that Eurovision has had an impact on their songwriting, because it is not associated with a high level of credibility. It is too “easy,” says Arnthor Birgisson (Song Summit 2012). RedOne is uncharacteristically open about the topic and says, “I love the Eurovision Song Contest. Back in Morocco we always watched Eurovision and I’ve never cared that it isn’t cool or give a lot of cred” (Amster 2014). Many of his Lady Gaga songs, such as Bad Romance, clearly draw from both Eurovision up-tempo songs, as well as the 1980s’ “Euro disco,” in a way that ultimately sounds like quintessential Swedish pop. The style of Eurovision not only impacts Swedish pop, but also the other way around; Swedish writer–producers have recently contributed to Eurovision songs in a circulatory fashion. Early in his career, Jörgen Elofsson stated that he had no intentions to write songs for Eurovision, although by 2017 he had done so (Swedish Songs 2011). Swedish writers work for Swedish contestants, as well as being “mercenaries” for foreign artists who want the help of Swedish experts. For example, Elofsson wrote the 2017 Irish contribution and Anders Bagge wrote the 2010 Azerbaijan entry. (Coincidentally, Anders Bagge’s father wrote Sweden’s 1977 Eurovision song, which famously placed dead last in the competition.) RedOne, David Kreuger, Carl Falk, and Kristian Lundin are other members of the Swedish cluster who have written Swedish entries, either for the national qualification round or for the final competition (Aftonbladet 2010; Eurovision Song Contest 2010; Amster 2014; Eurovision Song Contest 2011; Sveriges Television 2012)

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The fact that ABBA arrived on the global pop scene via Eurovision (as winners in 1974 with the song Waterloo) also furthers the impression that Swedish pop owes at least some of its success to Eurovision. Swedish writer–producers occasionally mention ABBA as an influence. For example, Andreas Carlsson highlights the importance of lyrics and music working together, much like discussed previously in this chapter, and cites ABBA as excelling at that way of writing (Sveriges Radio 2016). An all-together separate influence on the writer–producer cluster is the Swedish club scene. Swedish clubs are popular and relatively mainstream, meaning that a wide variety of young people attend clubs and therefore the music is mostly chart-oriented pop rather than “hard” and nicheoriented dance music. The close connection between clubs and dancing means that the disc jockey becomes a key musical intermediary. Some of the Swedish writer–producers started as DJs, such as Per Magnusson and David Kreuger, and the learning that took place in the club spilled over into songwriting. The progenitor of the cluster, Denniz Pop, was a DJ on the Stockholm club circuit with exceptional abilities and mixing skills (Sveriges Radio 2008). A Denniz Pop songwriting rule was that the listener should recognize a song after just one second, which is something he learned as a DJ (Graves 2015). Other writer–producers—such as Gustav Efraimsson, Ali Payami, and Kristian Lundin—not only started as DJs but they also acknowledge that observing how people react to music, and developing a feel for what the audience wants, were skills they perfected in the DJ booth (Don’t Stop the Pop 2012; LeDonne 2017). Such DJ experiences followed the writer–producers into the studio and informed their production work (LikeFM 2009). More recently, the DJ has shifted from being a local background player in the music industry to a global superstar. The “spectacular DJs” tour and play arena-sized venues where they perform on a platform with enhanced visuals, such as video screens and light shows, while the “producer DJ” conducts studio work while retaining an identity as a DJ (Rietvald 2013). This music may be commercially oriented EDM, which leans toward an accessible pop sound, unlike other subgenres of DJ-driven dance music, such as techno, and dubstep. Sweden “has been massively influential in the evolution of house and electronic dance music,” writes the British Capital FM (2015). The top artists are Avicii and Swedish House Mafia, although others, such as Alesso, Galantis, Tove Lo, Eric Prydtz, Måns Zelmerlöw, and Basshunter have had various degree of commercial success or critical acclaim. Both

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Avicii and Swedish House Mafia emerged from the Stockholm dance scene, which was influenced by intermittent rave events, supported by small Swedish techno record labels, the practitioners’ propensity to apply computer technology in music making, a demand for remix work from established artists, and increasing international attention as EDM rose to prominence. By 2011, Swedish House Mafia sold out Madison Square Garden in New York City in nine minutes (Dernulf 2013). After early semi-retirement by Avicii and Swedish House Mafia, Stockholm-native Alesso emerged as the next prominent DJ, also with an EDM style that incorporated significant pop sensibilities (Persson 2015). Described by Billboard as a globetrotting EDM star, Alesso played the Coachella festival, maintained a Las Vegas residency for some time, and did Grammy-nominated remixes for major pop artists (Buerger 2015). He embodied the Swedish DJ—a musical archetype in the early 2010s. Figure 4.1 shows a humorous mock artist lineup at an imaginary music festival, where “Swedish DJ” gets the fifth highest billing (to the left in the poster). The turn toward electronically made music has in some ways had a democratizing effect. With modest investments in music technology, large numbers of people can engage in music production. This effect was especially pronounced in quick-to-absorb-trends in Sweden. While Swedish DJs and DJ–producers eventually had significant success, genres like house and techno appeal to a small segment of the Swedish music market. Therefore, only Stockholm was large enough to develop an early scene, unlike the rest of the country. By 2012, the interest in dance music had grown and EDM was mainstream in Sweden. Ironically, Swedish House Mafia had its first and last shows in Sweden, a three-night performance at Friends Arena in Stockholm, in 2012 (Dernulf 2013). Around this time, Alesso prophesized that “electronic dance music must soon be thought of as the cultural movement [in Sweden] that more than anything symbolizes the 2010 decade” (Persson 2015). His words were premature; the dance music subculture is still active, but EDM soon lost some of its popularity within mainstream pop. Arguably even more recognized internationally than the Swedish DJ archetype is the long-standing association between Sweden and metal music (which is true for other Nordic countries as well). Concomitant with the previously identified synth pop era of the 1980s, a separate youth demographic favored metal music. In fact, many people growing up in Sweden at the time identified with either of the two subcultural musical

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Fig. 4.1 Parody of music festival poster with typical lineup (Source Neat Dude Collective)

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styles. By the early 2000s, Cheironites with a background in the metal scene borrowed elements from metal and placed them in a pop context. Bands like Def Leppard and Kiss are cited as sources of inspiration (Gradvall 2016b). In particular, Max Martin as a former singer of a metal band and Andreas Carlsson as a Kiss fan, were responsible for the hybridization. A section of Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way was a Metallica riff, according to Andreas Carlsson (Aldén 2015). Max Martin agrees, but contends that such borrowing was subconscious rather than intentional (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016a). Later, Shellback continued the Swedish way of turning metal into pop. Shellback’s mentor Max Martin both challenged and taught him to write “simple” pop rather than complex metal harmonies. Even so, Shellbacks metal background is sometimes evident, as in the vocal riff (“na-na-na-na-na-na-na”) in Pink’s So What , inspired by the classic hard rock band Deep Purple (Sveriges Radio 2015a). The last influence discussed here—Swedish folk music—cannot be understood as circulatory or “indigenized.” Of specific import is its central element, minor key tonality, which results in “melancholic” sounding music. John Seabrook states that Max Martin’s melodies are reminiscent of Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King 2 as much as contemporary music. He goes on to write that like many of ABBA’s tunes, these [Swedish-produced] Backstreet Boys songs use major and minor chords in surprising combinations (going to a minor chord on the chorus, say, when you least expect it), producing happy songs that sound sad, and sad songs that make you happy—tunes that serve a wide variety of moods. (Seabrook 2015)

Performer and Wolf Cousin member Tove Lo supports this perspective, stating that Swedish music has “a little bit of melancholy or a darker sense to it, to not make it too sugary or too bubblegum” (Frere-Jones 2014). Gustav Efraimsson also cites the role of folk music in the writing of pop songs: “We just grow up listening to big catchy choruses in everything from folk music, rock to schlager” (Don’t Stop the Pop 2012).

2 Grieg is a Norwegin classical composer who used elements of folk music. The fact that In the Hall of the Mountain King is in the classical canon is perhaps the reason why Seabrook selected it for comparison rather than using a Swedish song.

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Klas Åhlund elaborates further on the connection between Swedish pop and folk music: “American folk music is more of a communal thing where you sing along and you stomp your feet and dance to it…The Swedish melodies are more meant to sing [sic] on a mountain top with a bunch of goats—it’s very melancholy and lonely” (Blistein 2013). Inspired by Åhlund’s thinking, American journalist Jon Blistein (2013) ties low population density and folk music that “rings of despondence and loneliness” to contemporary Swedish pop. While moodiness is not unique to Swedish folk, Blistein further suggests “what distinguishes Swedish melodies then is the way that natives have internalized them alongside massive amounts of music from America and the UK.” Writer–producer Vincent Pontare may be an example of such internalization as he seeks musical inspiration in the wilderness during trips to northern Sweden and through his part-Sami heritage (Olsson 2014). Genre Crossing as Swedish As a writer–producer, you can blend anything you want, says Ali Payami (Sveriges Utbildningsradio 2016b). Does that mean genres are disappearing? While that may be an exaggeration—for example, the argument leaves out how musical styles still give identity to different groups of people—he is correct that pop music seems to be moving in that direction. Particularly younger people think less about listening to “incompatible” musical categories than older generations do. One reason may be the eclecticism of music consumption through online streaming. Compared to radio, there are few program directors who define genres in an effort to seek out a subset of consumers. Instead, playlists are mostly compiled by listeners, which tend to be boundary crossing. Although the algorithms of Spotify and other streaming services are also important gatekeepers in terms of individualizing playlists for each listener. Sweden plays an important role in the genre-crossing trend, especially as it applies to contemporary pop. Swedish writer–producers are well equipped to offer musical products that blend multiple musical styles with ease. British journalist Bernadette McNulty (2015) writes, “unlike American or British songwriters and producers, the Swedes are less tribal about their music tastes.” This is not just a recent phenomenon associated with Spotify or other forms of streaming. For quite some time, Swedish music consumers have preferred the mixing of styles. Starting in the 1980s, Absolute Music albums frequently parked near the top of

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the charts in Sweden. Absolute Music was a series of compilation albums consisting of top-selling music from different genres. (It should be noted that similar compilation concepts were popular elsewhere, such as Now That’s What I Call Music! in the United Kingdom; U.S. compilations, while important, did not chart at the absolute top as in Sweden.) But what makes somebody, as McNulty observed, less tribal in terms of music? Writer–producer Kristian Lundin says, “when you work with A&Rs and managers from the US, everything is about categorizing. Is it rock? Is it adult contemporary? You always have to explain what genre it fits in to and that doesn’t really happen in Europe” (Bouwman 2003). The underlying factor of this explanation is the difference in radio programming. American radio is highly format-oriented, while Swedish radio is more free flowing. If hip-hop, Frank Sinatra, and Lady Gaga can co-mingle in a ten-minute radio segment, the listener (and songwriter) is more likely to value pop music hybrids. Others argue the importance of race also played a role. John Seabrook (2015) again: A Swedish writer, free of the racist legacy of the R.&B./pop dichotomy, could create music that combined both, and that is just what [Max] Martin has done. The resulting hybrid, one could argue, has become the mainstream sound on Top Forty radio today.

From a music production perspective, Anders Bagge suggests another explanation. In a small music market like Sweden, the producer must accept work in many genres in order to survive; there are only so many jobs available (Bouwman 2001). The conclusion is that, ultimately, this eclectic background is an advantage in the new, non-genre driven pop world. Many Swedish writer–producers stress the importance of genre crossing. Andreas Carlsson’s recommendation for successful writing is to study as much music as possible, especially different genres and old music, as there is a reason why older hits were once popular. The metaphor used in the data material is that a good songwriter must have a large palette to paint from (Aldén 2015; Sveriges Radio 2015b). RedOne and Carl Falk argue along similar lines: Listen to a lot of music of all styles and analyze its structure (Blumentrath 2009; Reque-Dragicevic 2012). Stockholm artist Seinabo Sey points to genre cross-fertilization: “A lot of these really big pop producers listen to everything. A lot of them are really hardcore rock heads or actual hip-hop…producers doing pop, which is maybe

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why they’re so good at it” (Kheraj 2014). In all likelihood, Sey refers to her producer Magnus Lidehäll. The Guardian newspaper argues that Swedish hits by post-Martin producers such as Lidehäll are dependent on the practice of “splicing genres and textures” and that genre crossing has a long legacy: “Swedes have long experimented with chucking several styles into one song but this next generation make it sound seamless” (Mokoena 2015). To explore how this is accomplished in an individual song, Nicki Minaj’s Starships is a good case study (see Box). Nicki Minaj’s Starships Starships is a hybrid dance song by the Caribbean–American singer Nicki Minaj. Released in 2012, it became a plantinum selling single and reached number one on the charts in several countries. Its extensive writing and production team brought different styles and sensibilities to the song. Writing credits go to Nicki Minaj, RedOne, Carl Falk, Rami Yacoub, Bilal Hajji (another Morocco–Swede), and British writer Wayne Hector; production was done by the Swedish team RedOne, Rami Yacoub, and Carl Falk. The song consists of several distinct sections, so much that it has the character of a pathwork collage, which is part of the song’s appeal. Starships starts off with a guitar riff, which leads into a rap segment that was partly designed by Minaj herself. The following pre-chorus is musically dominated by electronic drums with Minaj now singing instead of rapping. The chorus departs dramatically as the song drops in intensity and pace, but with an ear-catching hook that combines the phrase “starships are meant to fly” with the “typical” Swedish lush synth chord. The song then enters a completely new phase, a hard dance beat, followed by repeats of some of the earlier elements. Interestingly, Starships was originally written for the pop-rock band Cobra Starship, but they passed on the song, which undoubtedly took on a very different form as performed by Nicki Minaj.

Swedish--American Hybrid Elements At the end of this chapter, I will leave the identification of specifically Swedish song characteristics aside and instead reconnect with hybridity and circulation through the interactions between Sweden and other nodes in the pop world, specifically the United States.

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Starting in the winter of 1998, almost all Cheiron’s writer–producers spent two weeks in Key West, Florida for an extended songwriting session. Despite an uninterrupted series of hits, the group nevertheless felt a need to remove themselves from the “bubble” of the Cheiron studio in Stockholm. The group rented a large home in Key West where they worked together. The musical impact was noticeable. American radio and its programming was one source of stimulation, which was different than what the Swedes had been exposed to at home, resulting in new ways of thinking. The influence of country music radio is said to have been influential on songwriting for Backstreet Boys (Björkmann 2000). For the other boy band, NSYNC, Cheiron wrote Bye Bye Bye. Cheiron thought they had achieved an American sound, while Americans thought it was still Nordic sounding (Sveriges Radio 2015a). Britney Spears’ Sometimes also originated from the Key West session. A few years later, the number of hits declined and Cheiron’s sound was stale and also copied by many others (as described in Chapter 3). Max Martin experienced a crisis, which again led to the United States, but this time New York City. The main outcome of the trip turned out to be a new indie rock sound and the 2004 hit Since U Been Gone written for Kelly Clarkson. When Martin traveled to New York, he started to use a guitar during writing sessions (he previously composed on keyboard). Since U Been Gone was influenced by Maps a song by the New York band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, although some sources mention The Strokes, also New Yorkers, as a source of inspiration (Cragg 2016b; Nelson 2015). One can also hear echoes of earlier grunge music, like Nirvana, in the switch from quiet to an explosive chorus. However, Martin thought that these and other indie songs did not fully develop the chorus and he decided to write a song that better conformed to his melodic math (Nelson 2015). Fast forward yet a few years, to 2013. Katy Perry’s album Prism was an all-out Swedish collaboration, but recorded in both Stockholm and in Southern California, the home of Katy Perry. Klas Åhlund, one of the writer–producers for the album says, “I totally think that [the recording location] affected how it came out. When you move around the planet, the vibe of the place you’re making the music in definitely makes an imprint on whatever you’re writing” (Blistein 2013). Thus, not only can it be productive to write songs in different milieus, but recordings may also take on different characteristics based on location. The three examples above suggest a U.S.–Sweden dynamic where continuous input from both places is necessary. Christian Wåhlberg, former

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Murlyn manager, illuminates the need for a spatially balanced approach in order to achieve the best creative result: I think if you stay too long in America every European becomes too American. If you just go over there frequently, you get the energy and the understanding, but still have some of your own DNA. For songwriters it’s good to go over there, you get a really good injection. Our writers here in Sweden always come back with a lot of energy, but are still in their own environment and I think that is very healthy. (Blumentrath 2011)

Circulation of Styles Pop, by its very transient nature, doesn’t have a specific sound…pop music in general is constantly shifting, absorbing and fusing bits of other genres to create something new…[S]econd-guessing about where the fickle world of pop is heading next means that very few people involved in its creation are able to maintain relevance: They have their moment, ride the zeitgeist of that sound for a few years and then when pop does one of its hasty U-turns, they get left behind. (Cragg 2016a)

The quote above from Billboard was written as an introduction to Max Martin’s Polar Prize award, where I started this book. It proposes two things. First, the ever-evolving styles in pop music are unpredictable and new trends cannot easily be conjured up in a boardroom and subsequently sold to mass markets. Secondly, in this environment the creative success of music makers tends to be short-lived. But also implied here is Martin’s ability to transcend the fast-paced rhythm of change and continuously find the right sounds and styles. To end this chapter, I will explore not just Martin, but the role of Swedish writer–producers in the evolution of pop music styles. A new sound becomes dominant when it breaks with what came before. The ultimate, but often elusive goal for a writer–producer is to usher in a paradigm-shifting sound. However, it is hard to know how to achieve that and exactly how to make that switch in style, by pushing the envelope further. The failure rate is higher than success. Three seminal moments in the Swedish pop writing canon are worth mentioning here as having achieved just that. First, there is Britney Spears’ 2003 Toxic, produced and written by Bloodshy & Avant with writing co-credits to fellow Swede Henrik Jonback and British songwriting pro

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Cathy Dennis. When working on Toxic, Bloodshy & Avant remembered that “everyone was asking for something new, something they hadn’t heard before. And radio was open for it” (Wood 2016). What made Toxic unusual was the incorporation of strings sampled from a Bollywood movie combined with a high BPM (beats per minute) count. An analysis by classical composer Adam Ragusea concludes that the unusual tonal scale evokes eastern exoticism, and the combination of Indian strings with a James Bond-like surf guitar makes for a novel musical moment (Ragusea 2015). Before its release, Spears’ management liked Toxic, but not as a single, it was too “weird” (Almegård 2009). However, when the album In the Zone came out, it was Toxic that took off (via sales on iTunes) and acquired its prominent status. (It also won a Grammy for best dance recording.) The story of this song also exemplifies a process whereby the music industry is initially unwilling to take risks and cannot anticipate momentous shifts, but when it happens, a new style is adopted and copied quickly by both industry and artists. In the end, Bloodshy & Avant emerged with a reputation as influencing “contemporary music in general. They’re always one step ahead of trends” (One a Day 2010). Almost at the same time as Toxic, Max Martin rejuvenated his career with the aforementioned Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone. This is also an example of a musical break point through its incorporation (or cooptation) of an alternative rock sound. Since U Been Gone is widely credited with sparking a decade-long revival of rock influences in pop music (Wickman et al. 2014). While derivative of an existing musical style, it nevertheless mainstreamed the rock sound, which could subsequently be exploited by like artists like Pink, who straddles the boundary between pop and rock. Max Martin was also not shy about reusing the sound himself; for example, the baseline of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream is quite similar. The third example is RedOne’s creation of the Lady Gaga sound— fast-paced dance music influenced by Euro disco combined with a strong emphasis on melody. According to Sasha Frere-Jones, the New Yorker’s music critic, Just Dance, the launchpad for Lady Gaga, revolutionized pop music: “It was one of the first big records to ride the sea change in pop, away from hip hop and back toward disco, the music that has been in charge of the charts in Europe for a long time” (Frere-Jones 2009). Other media agreed with the assessment. Rolling Stone (2011) wrote that RedOne was responsible for dance’s mainstream popularity in the early 2010s and USA Today added that “while dance-pop is hardly new,

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the pair [RedOne and Lady Gaga] shoved the beat-driven sound to center stage” (Gundersen 2011). Much like the Toxic case, the risk-avoiding music industry considered the sound unmarketable at first. Eventually, though, the Lady Gaga style was copied, diminished in importance, and Lady Gaga has now added Las Vegas shows and movie acting/singing to her repertoire. Beyond changing trends that can be pinpointed to certain moments in time, and specific songs and artists, the breakthrough of sounds often find inspiration in the past in semi-predictable ways. Writer–producers make a point of returning to older styles that contemporary audiences are not familiar with. The age of the Swedish writer–producers would make them young music consumers during the 1980s and the 1990s, with a preference for returning to styles that were popular in Sweden at the time. The influence of the 1980s music was highlighted earlier in this chapter; today, retrospective pop culture sounds has circled around to the 1990s. For example, the 2014 Wolf Cousin song Problem for Ariana Grande is understood in media as a “1990s-throwback-R&B jam” (Greene 2014). This points to a recycling interval of about 20–30 years. The speed of sound recycling also depends on the audience. For example, the young fans of boy bands quickly abandon their idols as they grow older, which results in a quick “turnover” as a new generation is soon ready for that boy band sound again. The Swedish writer–producer cluster has recycled some of its own work, such as the boy band “renaissance” during the early 2010s. Carl Falk says that One Direction fans (approximately 10–14-year-olds) had not listened to older boy bands, which made it easier to incorporate the sound from the late 1990s (ONTD 2012). It also provided a contrast with other styles popular at that moment—hiphop, R&B, and EDM. One Direction’s One Thing has song structure, production value, and even theme of the music video, similar to Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way (Clizbeats 2012). The sounds from another late 1990s milestone—Britney Spears’…Baby One More Time— have also been raided, as can be heard in the 2016 Wolf Cousins-produced Into You by Ariana Grande (Griffiths 2017). These are just a couple among innumerable examples of the circulation of popular music in this monograph—geographically, temporally, and musically.

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Soundgraphics. (2012, June). Andreas Carlsson interview. http://soundgraphics. net/eng/interview/andreas-carlsson-interview.html. Accessed June 12, 2017. Stutz, C. (2014, June 27). RedOne: From Lady Gaga to soccer’s go-to hitmaker—with love to Real Madrid (Q&A). Billboard. https://www.billboard. com/biz/articles/news/global/6140812/redone-from-lady-gaga-to-soccersgo-to-hit-maker-with-love-to-real. Accessed February 28, 2019. Stutz, C. (2016, August 12). 6 songs you didn’t know Lady Gaga wrote. Billboard. https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7469543/ lady-gaga-songs-writer-britney-spears-jennifer-lopez. Accessed July 25, 2019. Stutz, C. (2017, February 27). Music charts, news, photos & video. Billboard. https://www.billboard.com/. Accessed June 26, 2017. Sveriges Radio. (2008). Cheiron – en Popsaga [Soundfile]. P4 Stockholm. https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=103&artikel=5472825. Accessed 1 August 2018. Sveriges Radio. (2013a, August 1). Nadir “RedOne” Khayat [Soundfile]. Sommar i P 1. http://podtail.com/podcast/sommar-i-p1/nadir-redone-khayat/. Accessed August 7, 2018. Sveriges Radio. (2013b, September 13). Fräck fredag med Laleh och Klas Åhlund [Soundfile]. http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/251740?programid=4283. Accessed December 4, 2017. Sveriges Radio. (2013c, November 7). Han är låtskrivaren bakom världstjärnornas hits [Soundfile]. P4 Stockholm. http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx? programid=103&artikel=5697306. Accessed December 4, 2017. Sveriges Radio. (2015a). Arvet efter Cheiron—en oändlig historia med Max Martin [Soundfile]. https://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/688146?programid= 4918&groupid=22737. Accessed August 1, 2018. Sveriges Radio. (2015b, November 9). Låtslut och årtiondefester [Soundfile]. http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/631641?programid=4283. Accessed August 1, 2018. Sveriges Radio. (2016, April 16). Andreas Carlsson: Man måste älska u för att lyckas [Soundfile]. Jukeboxen i P4. http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/ 705266?programid=4760. Accessed January 9, 2018. Sveriges Television. (2012, February 18). Superduellen: RedOne vs. David Kreuger [Videofile]. https://www.svt.se/melodifestivalen/ 20120218155735_superduellen_redone_vs_david_kreuger. Accessed July, 14 2017. Sveriges Utbildningsradio. (2011). Låtarna som förändrade musiken, Episode 11: I Want It That Way [Soundfile]. http://urskola.se/Produkter/ 181469-Latarna-som-forandrade-musiken-I-want-it-that-way. Accessed April 21, 2017.

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Sveriges Utbildningsradio. (2012). Musik på export—så gjorde vi. Episode of series UR Samtiden - Musik som slår [Soundfile]. http://urskola. se/Produkter/173083-UR-Samtiden-Musik-som-slar-Musik-pa-export-sagjorde-vi. Accessed April, 21 2017. Sveriges Utbildningsradio. (2016a). Max Martin master class. Episode in series UR Samtiden—Polarprissamtal 2016 [Soundfile]. http://urskola.se/ Produkter/196363-UR-Samtiden-Polarprissamtal-2016-Max-Martin-masterclass. Accessed April 23, 2017. Sveriges Utbildningsradio. (2016b). Från hiphop till pop med Ali Payami. Episode in series UR Samtiden—Polarprissamtal 2016 [Soundfile]. http:// urskola.se/Produkter/196656-UR-Samtiden-Polarprissamtal-2016-Franhiphop-till-pop-med-Ali-Payami. Accessed April 23, 2017. Swedish Songs. (2011). Jörgen Elofsson interview. http://www.swedishsongs.de. Accessed June 15, 2017. Swift, J. (2017, June 22). Imagine Dragons on depression and how latest album Evolve is ‘their arrival’. The Sun. https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/ 3863719/band-imagine-dragons-on-faith-accepting-depression-and-howlatest-album-evolve-is-their-arrival/. Accessed August 1, 2017. Unterberger, A. (2017, April 28). Savan Kotecha on One Direction’s ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ chorus and boy band counter-programming. Billboard. https://www.yahoo.com/music/savan-kotecha-one-directions-makesbeautiful-chorus-boy-144422656.html. Accessed June 6, 2017. van Luling, T. (2016, December 12). Backstreet Boys finally confirm the most famous legend about them. The Huffington Post. https:// www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/backstreet-boys-want-it-that-way_us_ 57e2f6abe4b0e28b2b520d73. Accessed February 28, 2019. Waterman, D. (2013, February 6). The story behind the song: Kelly Clarkson, “Stronger.” American Songwriter. https://americansongwriter.com/2012/ 03/the-story-behind-the-song-kelly-clarkson-stronger-what-doesnt-kill-you/. Accessed June 15, 2017. Wickman, F., Lockett, D., Molanphy, C., & Hamilton, J. (2014, December 23). The top 10 producers of 2014. Slate. http://www.slate.com/blogs/ browbeat/2014/12/23/best_producers_2014_dj_mustard_max_martin_ mike_will_made_it_pharrell_and.html. Accessed July 19, 2017. Wolk, D. (2012, November 13). One Direction’s songwriters: They’re what make the boy band beautiful. Time. http://entertainment.time.com/ 2012/11/13/one-directions-songwriters-theyre-what-make-the-boy-bandbeautiful/. Accessed July 19, 2017. Wood, M. (2016, March 10). The men of Miike Snow make pop music— But they’re not pop stars. Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/ entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-miike-snow-iii-interview-20160310story.html. Accessed June 9, 2017.

CHAPTER 5

Concluding Thoughts

Abstract The Swedish music industry has transitioned from an emphasis on artist development to songwriting and production. I call the former the Swedish Music Miracle 1.0 and the latter 2.0. Swedish writer–producers, clustered in Stockholm, developed a worldwide reputation and a contact network with other actors in the music industry. They also established a commercially successful style with strong melodic elements based on a variety of influences that amalgamated into a local–global pop music hybrid. It is uncertain, however, how long this cluster can be maintained in Stockholm. Keywords Music geography · Swedish music · Songwriting · Music production · Music industry

Using the theoretical framework as laid out at the beginning of the monograph, the evolution of the Swedish cluster can be described as follows. At first, a small group of Swedish writers–producers worked with domestic artists, some of whom garnered international attention. Subsequently, the writer–producers developed a set of global collaborators, both artists and prominent music industry professionals. Over time, their collaborative network expanded as their reputation grew. In the music industry, reputation flows through easily quantifiable and formal channels, such as the success of songs on top charts. However, informal channels, those conceptualized as buzz, also matters greatly. Knowledge about an individual © The Author(s) 2020 O. Johansson, Songs from Sweden, Geographies of Media, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2736-4_5

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writer–producer—who “has the technical skills needed, who is most innovative, whom one can collaborate with” (Asheim et al. 2007)—emerge in unexpected but opportune meetings in studios or in other spaces where music “insiders” congregate. Writer–producer Andreas Carlsson use the term brand, which is closely related to reputation, when he describes this process: “Everyday you’re a personal brand. And it is what others say about you when you are not present. If that brand is optimal, it can open a lot of doors [my translation]” (TV4 2015). New Swedish writer–producers continuously emerged, partly because they were hired by their predecessors in the Swedish cluster. The new individuals gained prestige through association with those who had already established a global reputation, and prestige is a precursor to reputation, which then new individuals managed to establish. This process has been strongly encouraged though deliberate mentorship that first and foremost took place within the confines of Stockholm, although writer– producers have (more or less permanently) relocated elsewhere (almost always Los Angeles). Jörgen Elofsson compares the cluster to Yggdrasil—the tree of life in Nordic mythology (Sveriges Radio 2015). Yggdrasil has roots to different subterranean worlds. In this metaphor, the roots represent the different influences that have had an impact on the music of the cluster, as well as the social, cultural, and economic forces that have supported Swedish music since the Music Miracle 1.0. The stem of Yggdrasil is Cheiron, which then branched out into a large number of writer–producer constellations and collaborations. Not all individuals of the cluster have collaborated directly with each other, but the “degree of separation” between individuals is remarkably limited. We can position virtually all individuals discussed in this monograph within one, or at the most two, degrees of separation. There has also been space for new Swedish writer–producers who established themselves independently of the early group because Sweden developed a place-based reputation semi-independent from individualbased reputation. This made it easier for new talent to establish important connections in the global industry. Place-based reputation had another important outcome. Prominent domestic writer–producers initially “cut their teeth” in the domestic Swedish market, which has a reputation as a talent development space—if you can make it in Sweden, you can “step up” and be successful internationally. This form of reputation offers

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the needed credibility for early-career individuals without a proven track record. The Music Miracle 2.0 is concentrated in Stockholm, while earlier Swedish rock music also thrived in peripheral places away from Stockholm. The factors that explain the spatial change are multiple: Stockholm’s closeness to national media institutions; its more pervasive commercial or neoliberal culture with cosmopolitan influences; and its infrastructure, such as Sweden’s only major international airport, which is important because the global collaborative songwriting and production efforts necessitate face-to-face contacts. For the music industry, the size of Stockholm occupies a spatial sweet spot—large enough to have agglomeration advantages but small enough to promote the ease of personal contacts. Moreover, the cluster encourages local learning, such as when relative newcomer Carl Falk cites “my Swedish songwriting colleagues” (Thyrén, n.d.) as a source of inspiration. Place-based and networked learning has, to some extent, produced a Swedish sound, in which melody is central. Swedish songwriting and production that involve the Swedish tradition of simple but effective melodies is a natural fit for several global phenomena, such as boy bands and other teen-oriented performers, as well as Idol-style artists in need of skilled songwriters. In fact, Sweden has a long history as a “pop country.” It is a style long favored by the public, from the radio show Svensktoppen that has for decades presented a top-10 list to the public every weekend, to the prominence of the Eurovision Song Contest. At the same time, Swedish genre crossing tendencies have also allowed for a degree of hybridization when there is a need to incorporate musical elements from other, less Swedish, traditions—such as funk, R&B, and hip-hop—when global pop trends so demand. Sweden has a reputation as quick to copy others, adopting elements of new styles, rather than being “cutting edge” trendsetters (Braunerhjelm 2009; Roney 2008). However, observing popular music from the lens of global circulation, such a conclusion is less certain. The Britney Spears song …One More Time, which has been dissected in previous chapters, illustrates the complex duality between derivative and original contributions to pop music. The A&R for Britney Spears describes the song in the following manner: “All those chords are so European, how could that possibly be an American R&B song?…No black artist was going to sing it.” He then adds, “But that was the genius of Max Martin. Without being fully aware of it, he’d forged a brilliant sound all his own, and

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within a few weeks every American producer was desperately scrambling to emulate it” (Seabrook 2015). Another way of thinking about Swedish pop is that it is international in style. In a sense, this proposition compares music to the international style in architecture—the modernist idea of seeking a universal language in architecture that is not derived from any local or historic tradition. Especially RedOne is a proponent of music as appealing to the global masses, being cosmopolitan at the same time as it is populist. Billboard writes, RedOne’s in demand because he helped create a very commercial sound…It’s accessible but not generic, thanks to a broader palette of influences…He’s producing music that’s poppy and a little bit other, just different enough to sound interesting to American ears. (Gundersen 2011)

The quote, however, suggests that while pop music’s objective may be internationalist, and particularly RedOne’s background makes him a person beyond easily identifiable national identity, pop music still originates somewhere, and cannot be replicated everywhere. RedOne’s own perspective also points to the importance of where he, as a pop writer, comes from: “Morocco is a very multicultural country and its music is very rhythmic…Living in Sweden added the pop, commercial, quality side of it” (Zach Sang Show 2016). Critical voices call the Music Miracle 2.0 blatantly commercial. As just one example among many, the media distribution service UWIRE comments in its review of Ellie Goulding’s 2015 Delirium album (produced by Max Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh) that “Goulding’s reliance on other producers and songwriters essentially removes her soulful personality from each song. Martin and others set an obviously mediocre standard with the entire project rarely deviating for an actual humanized moment” (Duncan 2015). Similar critiques are not unusual in Sweden either and Max Martin, in particular, expresses exasperation toward the lack of recognition and critics in the press who reject commercial pop (Sveriges Radio 1999). In truth, such voices are less common than they used to be. Popular culture is a form of commodification but also a vehicle for pride in local identity, heritage, and civic consciousness. Pop music is not typically elevated as a form of culture to be celebrated, but in contemporary Sweden there are, I would argue, more voices that celebrate Sweden’s prominent role in the music industry, both culturally and economically,

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than those who focus on its palpable commercial objective. Representatives of the Swedish government frequently laud the global prominence of the Swedish cultural economy of music. Swedish pop has, in fact, become a vehicle for national pride. This examination of the Swedish Music Miracle 2.0 does not include a historical-comparative perspective on how the phenomenon fits into the history of agglomerations of songwriting and production. “Hit factories” have certainly existed in pop music before, and in specific places. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis created the Minneapolis R&B sound during the 1980s and around the same time in London, Stock, Aitken, and Waterman operated a hit factory of bubblegum pop (Stock 2004). However, these cases only consisted of a very small number of creative people and their longevity was not as pronounced as Sweden’s 2.0. There are other famous producers of course—such as Phil Spector, Rick Rubin, Quincy Jones, and George Martin—but they are individual auteurs rather than components of a larger, place-based cluster. How about a comparison with Motown in Detroit during the 1960s? Cheiron’s early concept was reminiscent of Motown. They were both record labels/production companies, although Motown utilized a house band, while Cheiron with access to a new set of technologies recycled its own samples and sounds across artists. But for a few years, it was almost a factory feeling to Cheiron’s production process, says Arnthor Birgisson (Song Summit 2012), which made it Motown-like. In fact, music geographers have observed similarities between Detroit’s Fordist assembly-line model in manufacturing and the operations of Motown (Che 2009). Of course, the Swedish songwriting and production cluster evolved far beyond the early Cheiron model, exhibiting craft as much as mass production methods. In the end, perhaps the best two comparisons are Tin Pan Alley in New York City and Music Row in Nashville. Tin Pan Alley is the nickname given to a cluster of songwriters and music publishers that operated in a section of Manhattan in New York City in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century (Jasen 2003). The commercial product of the time was sheet music, as the mechanism to transfer music geographically before the ascent of recorded music. The legal rights to songs emerged during this time, and they were closely associated with the firms around the Tin Pan Alley cluster. But as it existed 100 years ago during a very different technological era, the comparison with today’s Nashville is perhaps more apropos. The country music industry has been located in Nashville

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for decades, clustered in a specific section of the city, Music Row. Similar to pop music, the expectation among country music artists is to use the assistance of professional songwriters, and as country music exists in semi-isolation from the larger music industry, the knowledge, skill, and networks needed to write country music songs are almost entirely concentrated in Nashville. Hence, there are some parallels between Nashville and the Swedish Music Miracle 2.0; however, to truly explore those similarities (and differences) is a topic for another study. While it is almost impossible to imagine Nashville’s country music industry to disperse and disappear, the Swedish cluster is not “sticky” in the same way. There are competing writers and producers of pop songs around the world. The cluster could easily decline or relocate elsewhere if conditions are no longer met in Sweden. So far, there has been a variety of institutional and cultural factors underpinning the success of Sweden, from the days of ABBA to today. One often-cited example is the role of Swedish music schools, which, for example, Max Martin frequently acknowledges as a foundation for his own personal achievements. However, in a neoliberal era the public music education system faces funding challenges. In recognition of the importance of reproducing Swedish music skills, some members of the Swedish writer–producers have made personal investments in new forms of music education. Anders Bagge started a school for songwriting and production in his hometown of Örnsköldsvik (in north-central Sweden), and later, a second school in Stockholm. The schools explicitly support Sweden’s continuous role in global music (Fryshuset 2016). Andreas Carlsson also started schools, one in his hometown of Tingsryd in southern Sweden and a second in the western part of the country (Allastudier.se 2016; Edstam 2017). Carlsson’s objective is to develop a curriculum that is market-based, to capitalize on creativity, and to spur new music industry activity (Handelsbanken 2012). Can such investments perpetuate the 2.0 miracle? At the recent 2018 Grammy Awards, most of the winners were hip-hop and R&B artists, which may indicate that a new cycle of popular music is pivoting away from the core of Swedish success, melodic pop. At the same time, Swedish writer–producers may be malleable enough to still play a prominent role. Using the Denniz Pop Awards (which was established in 2013, where a jury of old Cheironites select the best contribution to the Swedish music industry) as an indicator, the 2.0 cluster seems to reproduce itself. The winners during the last two years (2017–2018) are SHY Martin & SHY Nodi and Ludwig Göransson. The duo SHY Martin & SHY Nodi has

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had international success writing for The Chainsmokers and Ellie Goulding. The duo is a product of Musikmakarna, a new music school in Örnskoldsvik and a partner to Anders Bagge’s school in the same town. Ludwig Göransson is a 2017 Grammy winner for the song Redbone by Childish Gambino, the performer name of actor–singer Danny Glover, and a 2019 Oscar winner in the category best musical score for the action-hero movie Black Panther. Göransson’s style leans toward funk and rap. Maybe these newest members of the Swedish writer–producer cluster point toward a continuous future for Sweden and its role in the world of pop music.

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Index

A A&R (artists and repertoire), 48, 68, 69, 88, 90, 122, 139 ABBA, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 21 Ace of Base, 7, 46, 51 Agglomeration, 26, 27, 81, 83, 139. See also Cluster Åhlund, Klas, 50, 57, 61, 63, 84, 88, 103, 110–113, 121, 124 Alesso, 46, 63, 90, 111, 117, 118 America, 2, 30, 114, 121. See also US (United States) American Idol, 55, 69, 70, 85. See also Pop Idol Analytical songwriting, 107 Anders, Adam, 65, 67, 91 Anglo-American pop, 10 ASCAP, 9 A Side Production, 54 Åström, Peer, 46, 50, 77, 83, 91, 92 Authenticity, 38, 60, 61, 79, 102 Avicii, 49, 56, 60, 63, 117, 118

B …Baby One More Time (song), 100, 113, 127 Backstreet Boys, 46, 47, 51, 67, 69, 70, 105, 113, 116, 120, 124, 127 Bagge, Anders, 46, 50, 52, 53, 68, 70, 75, 86, 87, 102, 116, 122, 142, 143 Bamse, 81 Bass, 10, 72, 106 Beat, 10, 55, 61, 102, 107, 110, 126 Billboard, 2, 7, 33, 57, 71, 87, 101, 118, 125, 140 Birgisson, Arnthor, 46, 53, 66, 77, 83, 108, 115, 116, 141 Bloodshy & Avant, 46, 48, 55, 61, 64, 67, 71, 75, 90, 91, 102, 103, 109, 125, 126 BMG, 51, 67 Boy bands, 47, 48, 51–55, 60, 68, 69, 85, 105, 113, 124, 127, 139 Brand, 16, 63, 138 Broadband, 21, 83, 84

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 O. Johansson, Songs from Sweden, Geographies of Media, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2736-4

163

164

INDEX

Buzz, 31, 34, 35, 63, 65, 82, 88, 90, 137 C California, 59, 84. See also Hollywood and Los Angeles Cardigans, The, 8, 16, 50, 57 Carlsson, Andreas, 44, 46, 48, 49, 52, 54, 60, 70, 76, 77, 79, 80, 83, 84, 86, 90, 102, 103, 105, 110, 113, 117, 120, 122, 138, 142 Charts, 2, 8, 19, 32, 33, 57, 61, 87, 101, 114, 122, 126, 137 Cheiron, 45–55, 58, 60, 63, 64, 69, 71, 73, 75, 76, 79, 84, 104–107, 109, 116, 124, 138, 141 Chords, 101, 102, 120 Chorus, 57, 73, 101, 104–106, 108, 109, 116, 120, 124 Circulation, 5, 6, 25, 28–30, 32, 35, 36, 43–45, 65, 82, 99, 105, 123, 125, 127, 139 Clarkson, Kelly, 47, 55, 70, 71, 86, 101, 107, 124, 126 Cluster, 2, 4, 14, 16–19, 26, 27, 43–46, 48–50, 55, 56, 59, 63, 65, 66, 72, 73, 75, 77, 81, 86, 114, 116, 117, 127, 137–139, 141–143. See also Agglomeration Collaboration, 5, 16, 44, 48, 51, 54, 55, 60, 61, 63, 65, 71, 72, 87–91, 111, 124, 138 Collective, 5, 17, 32, 33, 46–48, 51, 56, 59, 71, 73, 77, 80, 90 Commercial, 2, 6, 7, 10, 12, 16, 19, 29, 36, 51, 61, 76, 77, 109, 117, 139–141 Communication, 26, 43, 72, 83, 91, 92 Computers, 4, 68, 70, 80, 83, 108, 118 Concerts, 13, 16–18, 111

Consumption, 21, 26, 28, 29, 37, 121 Cosmopolitan, 11, 13, 139, 140 Country music, 124, 141, 142 Cowell, Simon, 1, 47, 54, 55, 60, 68–71, 86, 87, 90 Craft, 71, 73, 78, 104, 141 Creative economy, 27 Creativity, 6, 19, 29, 37, 72, 73, 80, 81, 83, 100, 142 Credibility, 11, 116, 139 Cultural economy, 2, 27, 141 D Death metal, 13, 14. See also Hard rock Demo, 3, 51, 68, 77, 82, 113, 114 Denmark, 8, 19, 20 Denniz Pop, 44, 46, 47, 51–53, 73, 76, 104, 107, 108, 117, 142 Dion, Celine, 53, 61 DJ (Disc jockey), 4, 19, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 72, 75, 80, 90, 111, 117 Downloading, 9, 21 Dr. Luke, 2, 55, 84, 87, 107 E EDM (electronic dance music), 4, 46, 56, 63, 75, 90, 111, 117, 118, 127 Efraimsson, Gustav, 47, 66, 117, 120 Elofsson, Jörgen, 44, 47, 52, 54, 55, 60, 69, 70, 77, 83, 86, 107, 112, 116, 138 England, 87. See also Great Britain English language, 11, 18 Europe (band), 7, 56 Europe (region), 26 Eurovision Song Contest, 3, 7, 114–116, 139 Export Music Sweden, 8, 16, 17, 19

INDEX

F Face-to-face, 26, 31, 35, 64, 66, 82, 89–91, 139 Falk, Carl, 47, 50, 54, 55, 63, 71, 86, 90, 101, 107, 110, 111, 116, 122, 127 Feedback, 28, 29 Film, 3, 7, 27, 45, 67, 73 The Final Countdown (song), 7, 9, 56 Firm, 11, 14, 31, 32, 34, 77, 88, 141 Folk music, 36, 37, 114, 120, 121 Formula, 7, 106, 107, 110, 115 Funk, 51, 106, 139, 143 G Gatekeeper, 12, 30, 62, 121 Gender, 75, 78, 79 Genre, 4, 13, 29, 37, 46, 60, 72, 105, 111, 114, 118, 121–123, 125, 139 Glee (television show), 50, 65, 67, 91 Globalization, 2, 5, 12, 13, 17, 19, 25, 26, 32, 35, 36, 38 Gomez, Selena, 69, 91, 109 Göransson, Ludwig, 59, 142, 143 Grammar, 11, 112 Grammy, 58, 59, 126, 142, 143 Grande, Ariana, 6, 47, 49, 59, 60, 68, 69, 100, 107, 113, 127 Great Britain, 6, 8, 19, 28. See also England Guitar, 8, 70, 72, 101, 108, 110, 124, 126 H Hard rock, 48, 50, 105, 114, 120. See also Death metal Harmonies, 29, 105, 111, 120 High school, 47, 48, 63 Hip-hop, 36, 48, 49, 55, 122, 127, 139. See also Rap

165

Hollywood, 3, 84. See also California and Los Angeles Hook, 75, 101, 104, 106, 108–110, 114, 115 Hybrid/Hybridity, 5, 6, 30, 32, 35–39, 45, 99, 103, 105, 110, 112, 122, 123 I Identity, 37, 38, 103, 117, 121, 140 Indie pop/Rock, 8, 10, 12, 16, 28, 38, 46, 50, 55, 56, 60, 61, 113, 114, 120, 122, 124, 126 Indigenization, 30, 114, 120 Infrastructure, 10, 18, 19, 21, 26, 27, 83, 139 Instrument, 7, 29, 48, 57, 68, 72, 100, 101, 110, 111 Internet, 12, 21, 28, 84, 91, 92 Interviews, 2, 44, 45, 76, 80, 86, 102, 103 I Want It That Way (song), 113, 116, 120, 127 J Japan, 7, 29 Jive/Zomba Records, 51, 52, 54 K Kiss, 54, 61, 120 Knowledge, 4, 10, 14, 16, 19, 26, 27, 30, 44, 45, 73, 74, 76, 83, 108, 137, 142 Kotecha, Savan, 47, 54, 55, 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76–79, 85, 101, 107, 109, 112, 113 Kreuger, David, 47, 48, 52, 54, 69, 116, 117 Kronlund, Alexander, 47, 57, 63, 70, 116

166

INDEX

L Lady Gaga, 2, 49, 56, 64, 87, 102, 103, 111, 116, 122, 126, 127 Language, 4, 11, 31, 65, 75, 79, 85, 111, 112. See also English language and Swedish language Lidehäll, Magnus, 48, 49, 108, 123 Local, 2, 5, 14, 16, 17, 19, 26–28, 31, 34–36, 38, 47, 51, 60, 63–65, 75, 77, 88, 105, 114, 117, 139, 140 Location, The, 46–48, 54, 90 London, 26, 38, 60, 82–84, 87, 101. See also England and Great Britain Lopez, Jennifer, 53, 60, 68 Los Angeles, 2, 26, 38, 43, 46, 48–50, 55, 56, 65, 67, 81–88, 90, 91. See also California and Hollywood Lundin, Kristian, 48, 49, 52, 54, 71, 90, 116, 117, 122 Lyrics, 3, 11, 12, 37, 38, 52, 68, 72, 73, 79, 85, 101–103, 108, 110–114, 117 M Madonna, 46, 102 Magnusson, Per, 47, 48, 52, 54, 69, 109, 117 Majors (record labels), 16, 17 Manager, 10, 32, 49, 52, 60, 68, 82, 87, 91, 122, 124 Maratone, 46, 48, 50, 54–56, 63, 85 Maroon 5, 1, 91, 114 Martin, Max, 1, 2, 17, 44–50, 52, 54–56, 58, 60, 61, 63, 65–68, 72–74, 76, 77, 79, 80, 84, 85, 87, 90, 91, 100, 102–105, 107–110, 112, 113, 120, 122, 124–126, 139, 140, 142 Mass production, 28, 104, 141 Mattman & Robin, 48, 71, 91, 109

Media, 2, 4, 5, 12, 27–29, 32, 38, 44, 45, 73, 76, 77, 81, 100, 105, 126, 127, 139, 140 Mediascapes, 28 Melancholy, 37, 120, 121 Melodic math, 107–110, 124 Melody, 1, 3, 30, 55, 72, 91, 100–102, 106, 108–114, 126, 139 Mentor(ing), 56, 71–74, 85, 90, 120 Migration, 26, 28, 36, 84 Miike Snow, 46, 75, 91 Milieu, 26, 60, 124 Minaj, Nikki, 47, 91, 110, 123 Morocco, 56, 116, 140 Motown, 141 Mottola, Tommy, 68, 82 Murlyn Music, 52, 82 Music education, 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 63, 84, 142 Music exports, 8, 14, 21 Music festivals, 16, 21, 118 Musician, 17, 27, 36, 50, 52, 56, 64, 67, 92, 114 Music industry, 2, 3, 5–8, 12, 14, 16–21, 26, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 43, 44, 49, 58, 59, 63, 65, 66, 77, 81–84, 87–90, 99, 102, 117, 126, 127, 137, 139, 140, 142 Music Miracle 1.0, 4, 5, 8, 38, 138 Music Miracle 2.0, 4, 5, 44, 80, 82, 139–142 Music publishing/publishers, 14, 16, 47, 65–67, 74, 141 Music scenes, 4, 7, 21, 27, 30, 38, 50, 87 Music schools. See Music education MXM, 47, 54, 66, 80

N Nashville, 78, 141, 142

INDEX

Networks, 2, 5, 6, 16, 26, 28, 30–33, 39, 44, 45, 55, 56, 63–66, 71–75, 81–84, 88, 89, 92, 100, 105, 137, 142 New York City, 3, 26, 118, 124, 141 1980s, 7, 12, 13, 51, 56, 63, 105, 111, 114–116, 118, 121, 127 1990s, 4, 13, 46, 47, 51, 70, 73, 83, 107, 109, 127 Node, 3, 5, 28, 29, 44, 66, 84, 87, 100, 105, 123 Nordic, 19, 67, 75, 78, 83, 118, 124, 138 NSYNC, 52, 69, 105, 116, 124 O One Direction, 2, 6, 47, 48, 55, 68–71, 85, 86, 101, 104, 107, 110, 127 P Payami, Ali, 49, 57, 73, 89, 100, 107, 117, 121 Perry, Katy, 1, 2, 6, 61, 79, 84, 90, 102, 124, 126 Pink, 56, 79, 103, 120, 126 Playlist, 121 Polar Prize (polarpriset ), 1, 2, 125 Pop Idol, 47, 54, 55, 69, 71. See also American Idol Pop music, 4–6, 10, 12, 26, 28–30, 32, 35, 39, 44, 48, 49, 51, 55, 57, 66, 75, 77, 87, 90, 100, 105, 110–112, 115, 121, 122, 125, 126, 139–143 Pop songs, 10, 29, 37, 56, 57, 69, 99, 110, 111, 120, 142 Pournouri, Ash, 49, 60, 82, 83 Problem (song), 59, 100, 127 Producer, 1–4, 6, 17, 27, 31, 32, 38, 44, 46, 50–53, 56, 60–63,

167

66, 73, 77–80, 83, 84, 87–91, 106–108, 111, 115, 121–123, 140 Proximity, 43, 88, 89 R Radio, 3, 12, 19, 45, 51, 54, 59, 60, 76, 78, 79, 83, 85, 86, 89, 102, 103, 108, 109, 114–117, 120–122, 124, 126, 138–140 R&B (rhythm and blues), 55, 105, 106, 114, 127, 139, 141, 142 Rap, 7, 36, 112. See also Hip-hop Record companies/labels, 3, 5, 8, 14, 16, 29, 32, 46, 49, 51–53, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 76, 113, 118, 141 RedOne, 47, 49, 56, 58, 64, 76–78, 87, 91, 102, 103, 109, 111, 112, 115, 116, 122, 126, 127, 140 Reputation, 5, 6, 17, 30–35, 43–46, 51, 57, 59–63, 66, 68, 69, 71, 75, 76, 82, 85, 88, 99, 110, 126, 137–139 Rhythm, 12, 30, 58, 72, 101, 106, 113, 125 Robyn, 46, 50, 51, 61, 79, 88, 105, 108, 111 Rock music, 6, 7, 14, 18, 56, 81, 139 Rural, 18, 37 S Salmanzadeh, Ilya, 49, 73, 85, 140 Schlager, 37, 120 Sey, Seinabo, 88, 108, 122, 123 Shellback, 44, 48, 49, 56, 60, 63, 74, 90, 91, 103, 109, 114, 120 Since U Been Gone (song), 55, 107, 124, 126 Skype, 83, 91 Software, 3, 4, 30, 91, 92

168

INDEX

Songwriter, 1–4, 6, 8, 14, 29, 31, 32, 37, 47, 49, 50, 55–57, 61, 64, 66–69, 72, 82, 86, 92, 100–104, 108–111, 116, 121, 122, 125, 139–142 Songwriting, 2–5, 19, 21, 26, 27, 43, 44, 55–58, 62–67, 71–73, 78–82, 84–86, 88, 89, 91, 99, 100, 102–104, 107, 108, 110, 112–117, 124, 125, 139, 141, 142 Soul music, 28 Sound, 2, 3, 6, 10, 29, 33–35, 45, 53–55, 61, 64, 69, 70, 72, 100, 101, 105–109, 111–113, 115–117, 120, 122–127 So What (song), 56, 103, 120 Spears, Britney, 1, 3, 46, 52, 55, 57, 60, 61, 64, 69, 79, 90, 100, 103, 105, 109, 113, 124–127, 139 Spotify, 6, 21, 83, 121 Stakeholders, 5, 32, 33 Stockholm, 1–3, 14, 16, 21, 28, 43–54, 56, 57, 60, 63–67, 72, 73, 76–78, 80–91, 105, 106, 117, 118, 122, 124, 138, 139, 142 Studio, 21, 45, 47, 49–54, 64, 66, 72, 73, 75–79, 84–86, 88–91, 100, 102, 104, 117, 124 Svengali, 74 Svensson, Peter, 8, 50, 57, 85 Swedish culture, 11, 37, 71, 75 Swedish House Mafia, 4, 46, 48, 49, 56, 80, 90, 117, 118 Swedish language, 9, 12, 73 Swedish pop, 5, 8, 10, 13, 67, 69, 75, 104, 106–108, 110, 114, 116, 117, 121, 125, 140, 141 Swift, Taylor, 2, 48, 49, 60, 75, 79, 89, 103, 108, 109 Synth pop, 47, 114, 118

T Talomaa, Tom, 51, 52, 54 Teen star/artist/performers, 4, 56, 57, 60, 61, 64, 67, 69, 70, 73, 76, 78, 79, 84, 85, 102, 111, 113, 116, 120, 126, 137, 139 Television, 1, 12, 27, 28, 54, 55, 65, 67, 69, 70, 91, 115, 116 Text, 6, 44, 45, 57, 73 Tin Pan Alley, 3, 141 Topline, 72, 73, 85, 101, 102 Tour, 11, 117 Tove Lo, 4, 50, 57, 63, 73, 74, 80, 102, 111, 117, 120 Toxic (song), 3, 61, 125–127 Travel, 2, 36, 81–86 Trust, 33, 64, 72

U Urban, 18, 27 US (United States), 2, 8, 12, 18, 28–30, 33, 36, 47, 65, 67, 70, 71, 75, 78, 82, 85–87, 112, 122–124. See also America

V Venue, 16, 18, 88, 117 Verse, 6, 101, 104, 106, 108, 113

W Wåhlberg, Christian, 52, 53, 87, 124 Welfare state, 21, 73 Westlife, 54, 60, 69, 90 What Makes You Beautiful (song), 71, 101, 107 Williams, Pharrell, 2, 55 Wolf Cousins, 47–50, 57, 59, 63, 66, 71, 73, 74, 80, 90, 120, 127

INDEX

X X Factor, 69–71, 87

169

Y Yacoub, Rami, 47, 50, 52, 54, 55, 61, 71, 78, 85, 86, 90, 101, 106, 110, 111 YouTube, 7, 12, 28, 45