Max Martin hits Lorde with “Melodic Math”
This just in from the Times: “When Max Martin heard “Green Light” shortly before its release, she told me, “he had a very specific opinion, which had to do with the melodic math — shortening a part” … Martin described “Green Light” as a case of “incorrect songwriting,” Lorde said, clarifying that this “wasn’t an insult, just a statement of fact,” and one, furthermore, that she agreed with: “It’s a strange piece of music. On top of the left-field key change, “the drums don’t show up on the chorus until halfway through, which creates this other, bizarre part.””
Incidentally, Max Martin is “music’s magic melody man, responsible for twenty-one No. 1 Billboard hits—five fewer than John Lennon, and eleven behind Paul McCartney, on the all-time list. But, few outside the music business have heard of Max Martin. Presumably this is because Martin writes all of his songs for other people to sing. He is the poet hiding under the balcony of popular song, whispering the tunes that have become career-making records, such as “… Baby One More Time,” for Britney Spears, “Since U Been Gone,” for Kelly Clarkson, and “I Kissed a Girl,” for Katy Perry. The songs he co-wrote or co-produced for Taylor Swift, which include her past eight hits (three from “Red” and five from “1989”), transformed her from a popular singer-songwriter into a stadium-filling global pop star. (The “1989” tour recently passed the hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar mark.). Read Max’s full bio in the New Yorker here.
