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The Swedish DJ Who Invented Industrially-Manufactured Pop Music (bbc.com)
"BBC Culture reports on DJ Denniz Pop (born Dagge Volle), who couldn't sing, play an instrument, or write a song but could mathematically craft a song from stitching together electronically programmed sounds and beats," writes Slashdot reader dryriver. "Pop was the musical brains behind acts ranging from the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Ace Of Base to Britney Spears, and trained Max Martin who wrote 22 Billbooard #1 hits for the likes of Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Katy Perry, P!nk, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande and Maroon 5 using a technique called 'Melodic Math.'" From the report: In a basement in Stockholm's suburbs, Pop brought together an elite team of eight songwriters and producers for a new venture -- Cheiron Studios -- in 1992. Over the next eight years they would go on to sell hundreds of millions of records through the likes of Ace of Base, 5ive, Robyn, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys, Westlife, *NSYNC and Britney Spears. The secret of their songwriting success was to marry the melody to the beat, not work against it, and to have a big chorus. The team at Cheiron followed Pop's example, experimenting in clubs across the capital with up to a hundred different versions of each new track -- meticulously documenting the combinations of beats and melodies that made the club crowds go wild. Through these experiments, an entirely new genre of music blossomed, one that seemed tailor-made for the age of manufactured boybands and girl groups. Having grown up in socialist Sweden, Pop's approach to writing music was almost utilitarian. Like so many Swedish success stories -- IKEA, H&M, Volvo and Spotify -- the Cheiron team wanted their product to appeal to the maximum amount of people, which in a country with a population of only nine million meant focusing outside the nation's borders. Pop designed his music to reflect the lives of the people who bought more music than anyone else -- American teenagers -- at least as far as he understood them from his basement in faraway Stockholm.
Having grown up in socialist Sweden, Pop's approach to writing music was almost utilitarian.
I didn't know our neighboring country did Cuba and Soviet Union right next to us. Might have made us rethink that Northern dimension, or NATO membership. Thanks Slashdot for these educational moments of clarity.
It's funny how Venezuela was the shining socialist success story - right up until the point where they ran out of other people's money. Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, Sean Penn, a galaxy of hard left luminaries visited Venezuela and endorsed the socialist system. It was the way forward, you see. 21st century socialism. Now that it turned out like all other times socialism has been tried, suddenly Venezuela isn't socialist and never was. Despite voluminous evidence to the contrary. We have always been allied with Eastasia, we have always been at war with Eurasia.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Pop music is pretty close to dead due to lack of variety
love is just extroverted narcissism
Rap doesn't classify as music.
Pop has always been throwaaway, that's the reason the songs are only a couple of minutes long. To start with it was to fit on vinyl, now it's simply to ensure people will listen, not tune out and immediately go on iTunes/Amazon and buy the download. To learn that some of the most popular pop music was 100% manufactured is no great surprise to most of us,we've suspect it for the last 25 years. I think it's kind of sad that rather than trying to agonise over getting your emotions into music, really find a way to express your inner feelings, you simply flip a few toggles on some software and out come multi-million dollar hits but hey, if people like it good for them. Most of us go through the pop listening stage until we discover the music we truly like and pursue that. I loved pop music from 8-11, then I discovered Queen, then Iron Maiden and by the time I was 14 I was a full on metal fan getting into Thrash/Speed/Death as it emerged from the US to Europe in the mid-eighties. I'm almost 50 now and I see my kids going through the same phase, they're hitting their mid-teens and doscovering music like the Cure, Smiths, Joy Division, Queen and Pink Floyd. They still like pop music but they're starting grow out of it as they discover intellectual pursuits and need their music to deliver something with some substance or give them something to think about, not just mindless pap about boy-meets-girl.
Schoenberg would seem to be a valid comparison if you are talking about maths in music.