• Welcome to Cheiron Songwriters and Max Martin fan-forum and music discussion board www.swedishsongs.de - All about Swedish songwriters and music.
 

News:

Welcome to the Cheiron Songwriters Forums |
powered by www.maxmartinfansite.com


Here is the place to talk about all the members and friends of the legendary Cheiron Studios: Max Martin, Denniz PoP,  Rami Yacoub, Jörgen Elofsson, Andreas Carlsson, Per Magnusson, David Kreuger, Kristian Lundin, Herbie Crichlow, Alexandra Talomaa, Alexander Kronlund, John Amatiello, Jake Schulze and all the new and old songs by the Cheiron crew and friends (Dr Luke, Shellback, Savan Kotecha...) and (your) great pop music in general.


Main Menu

Workflow: Lyric writting and demo vocal productions?

Started by LG, November 01, 2012, 07:49:55 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

LG

I'm following Max productions since many years and know that he records some demo vocals on his own. Some time ago I red an article on 'Raise Your Glass' where they said that they didn't have the bridge when they sent the track to LA, which means, the lyrics haven't been finished yet, so haven't the vocals.

I'm simply wondering. Does Max deliver complete tracks most of the time including vocals or does he send his tracks around to writers like Dr Luke does and let them record the vocals? I know that his demos are polished to death but what about the vocals for example for a female artist?

Anyone got some info? I'm specifically talking about Max Martin/Shellback songs and not the collabs with Dr. Luke / Benny Blanco where they send the track back and forth.

Joshua

Hey LG, welcome! :)

The only thing I know is that Max likes to have his instrumental tracks pretty much complete to radio friendly extent (aside from mixing and mastering) by the time the artist comes in for the vocal session. But otherwise I'm a little confused about what you're asking... do you want to know who would do demo vocals for a female artist track? Not that I have any idea, but someone here might.

Strange about "Raise Your Glass". I always assumed P!nk recorded her vocals in Stockholm for that. I don't know why they'd send it to LA if it wasn't fully written, maybe they needed to get the bulk of the vocals recorded early on due to time pressure. Seems a bit backward though.

LG

Thanks for the welcome   ;)

I knew that that his instrumentals are very polished. I'm just wondering if he writes all the lyrics, melodies and then sings the demo vocals himself. And I'm wondering how good the demo vocals are or if it simply sketches the song. I'm asking this because I'm curious about what kind of versions they send to the A&Rs and artists.

Concerning the 'Raise Your Glass'... Shellback clearly said, that they didn't had the hook when Pink already started recording some vocals.

georg_e


           Can't say at all about Max/Shellback, but I do know that in the good old days when Max/Luke were writing together as a team, their demos weren't always too finished.  Two examples of this......first, here's quote from an article about Kelly Clarkson, on "Since U Been Gone":

                       
            'Since U Been Gone,' wasn't even a track she was convinced about herself. "It didn't have any lyrics and the melody really wasn't finalized," Clarkson explained, "the track was done on a computer, there was no band on it. My record label was freaking out about it and I was, like, why?" Thankfully........(label convinced her to do)


            Also, Max said in interview a couple of years ago that "Since U Been Gone" demo was "just me and Luke singing".

           Other examples of this......on a TV show with Clive Davis, they played a snippet of the "My Life Would Suck' demo, and Luke said many times his and Max's demos for Clive would be Luke singing just nonsense lyrics, phonetic stuff, and that later they would tailor the lyrics for the artist.   So anyway, it shows that on this level sometimes demos aren't super-finished things :-)

LG

They also send instrumentals... That's what I was thinking. Most of the time upcoming writers/producers need to present complete songs to A&Rs and Artists even if the instrumental would be top notch.

Axel

One thing you must keep in mind though: This is only possible on Max' level, because the artists usually can imagine what he can pull off in the end. On a newcomer-level, you absolutely can't send anything like that to an A&R. The song needs to be finished and professional, not just someone whistling a melody. The way I do it is I write a melody-line on a synth/piano when the whole structure of a song stands (or sometimes you build a track around a melody), and the melody then is an indicator for the lyricist to write lyrics to. Gives a bit of an idea on how many syllables you can use, etc...

georg_e


Joshua

Good find! I remember reading about this in a Time Magazine article around the time Breakaway took off, where she mentioned the trip to Sweden and how she asked the guys if they could give the songs a rock spin. I specifically remember her saying how excited Max was. It's like he'd always been waiting for permission to go down that road. Do you think that means Kelly is somewhat to thank for the pop/rock direction he took?

georg_e

                                                           ^   ^    ^
Well I guess so in that the song was such a monster that it gave Max/Luke a sound to go with for awhile :-)   It was lucky too that Luke is an extremely good guitar player!

LG

As we can see, she didn't even like the song but still flew to Sweden and let them change the song. So it was clear from the beginning that she is going to perform the song either way.

As newcomer to the top market you'll need to deliver everything top notch. Sometimes demos which are mixed and mastered are in addition performed better by the demo singer. But here there is no room to change a lot.

Joshua

Quote from: LG on November 21, 2012, 08:54:17 PM
So it was clear from the beginning that she is going to perform the song either way.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the label just wanted another pop/r&b album and were nervous about going with the pop/rock suggestion. If they hadn't let it happen, we'd probably have a pure pop version of it, which I still find hard to imagine.

turnaround

It would be great if they leak the original version.
And I liked it..