Let's do a structural breakdown of Max Martin's most popular songs

[Cheiron Meets Thizz]

I would like to break down the structure of Max Martin's most popular songs and maybe see if we can find a pattern in the structure and format of his most popular songs.

He switches styles quite often and he doesn't write his lyrics in the same structure every time. But, there's always something that is undeniably Max Martin about them. I feel like there's something in the drums or the horn/string sections but I can't tell what. His melodies are also quite distinct, but I don't know what makes them that way either.

Has anyone studied his songs long enough to discover some commonalities in his song structure, lyricism, melodic themes, keys, etc...?

What are some trademark Max Martin songwriting elements?

[jessenemitz]

I'm sure many producers have done this very thing at different stages of their careers. Max's "secrets" are indeed laid bare for all to see if they want to take the time to observe certain patterns in his productions. However, it might be easier for you to figure out what's driving a guy like Max instead of focusing too much on the technicalities you may perceive in his finished catalogue; There is a certain type of inspiration that goes into the "writing" and melody process that you can't calculate with a formula because it would be simply too difficult for any human to consciously connect so many ideas in perfect harmony; meaning at some point you really do need to rely on the subconscious skills you've built to put some real flesh on that song bone.

Here are some of the things I think make him tick underneath all that fantastic musical decision-making:

1.) This guy loves music! I mean REALLY loves music. He's making music positively. It's hard to hear any cynicism or elitism in his music (just in his work ethic and expectations for himself). He doesn't seem to show any bias (only earnest tastemaking) when quoting reference material new and old. He's not "too good" for any type of music or sound which is why you have a hard time nailing his sound down; his formula doesn't require him to use the same references over and over... he's constantly reacting and taking inspiration from the world's music scene current and past; popular and unknown. He's skilled and not afraid to blend his favorite things about different music cultures together and is certainly not afraid of giving people what they want... in as many ways as he possibly can.

2.) He collaborates. Some ideas have to come from you; but the some of the best ones are ones you can curate rather than create. Judging by the sheer amount of collaborations in Max's catalogue, you can see he isn't afraid to share the burden (and credit!) of the song and use many ideas and creative input from many other talents (some much younger). This shows humility and wisdom.

3.) He KNOWS the hits - this can be said of a lot of hitmakers... but these guys have a respect for recorded music history and regularly are calling up "vibes" and flavors from the great hits of all the relevant decades to the target demographic.

4.) He LISTENS to music. If you are a serious student of production you have to be listening all the time to what the world's music scene is doing... In all of Max's tracks, personally, I can hear tons of his influences.. many are obvious classics, many are virtually unknown acts (outside of genre and sub-genre music) but he isn't generating these sounds out of thin air... they have context.. and thus, so do his productions. If you look around and listen, you can easily find less-popular bands that sound very similar to some of the more interesting or trendy elements in a Max production.

5.) He CARES what it sounds like. You should be asking why he uses iZ ADA converters, certain mic/pre combos, and choices of software (like XLN audio) and always has Serban Ghenea mix his productions when he can. I can tell you he is making tons of small great decisions in every aspect (from the writing to the engineering to the arrangement to the final production and presentation). He never leaves a crack or chip in the armor... always presenting a FULL representation of his idea. Many producers are just lazy or work too fast and don't know (or don't know how to do the detail work).

6.) It seems like he is getting every single category of music writing and production and engineering to the HIGHEST level respectively.. like if he's going to put a bass in his music.. he makes it the BEST possible bass sound that fits the palette of instrumentation he is using for that song; but also one that everyone could recognize as 'a typically great sound'. If he has a sample, that one sound is optimized for phase relationship with other instruments. If a chord has a harmony, the tuning is locked to be the most pleasant third or fifth you've ever heard from a guitar. Maybe that's why Max has been known to record guitar strings in a chord individually to keep the intervals sounding absolutely the best they can.

What you are hearing in a Max Martin production is literally "best-in-class" excellence in all possible areas from the melody (which is the BIGGEST priority to Max) to the lyric, to the beat production, to the arrangement, to the vocal engineering and performance, to the vocal post-production, to the psycho-acoustic engineering qualities of every single one of his layered parts, to the hook, to the mix engineering. The guy has no fear. Like he isn't afraid of sounding too similar to something else and he's not afraid of sounding too unique. Overall, just an enormous amount of confidence.

7.) There are literally no weak links in the track... from any angle. In opposition to many other producers who may selectively take certain musical qualities more seriously than others, leaves Max tracks sounding far better in comparison. Imagine if a producer makes amazing beats, and has perfect mix quality but has fragmented vocal lead melodies and some weak sauce lyrics at a critical emotional part of the music... a Max song without those loose ends will always out-perform the competition simply because he doesn't allow FAIL anywhere near his music.

----------

Now in case you wanted something more theoretical if you want to start over-thinking the details

- the A line of each melody idea is presented IDENTICAL the second time.  the first and second times you hear pretty much ANYTHING in the music are always identical up until the presentation of the changeup... or B line. This is critical for the AAAB, AABA, ABAB melody form to really have the intended effect. Here some thoughts as to why this is so important.

INTERNAL MELODIC BALANCE

The goal is to establish a very strong pattern so that the listener anticipates that A part while you delightfully surprise them with the B part. No extra small syllables or shifts in rhythm should be in the A parts because this destroys the integrity of their memory of the A part.

If you give people two or THREE strong "A" Lines, the very next thought in the listener's mind SHOULD be the assumption that ANOTHER identical "A" line will happen next... that is because you SHOULD have established an easily recognizable pattern. the MAGIC is in how you deal with that expectation by taking them to the "B" part instead, which should compliment the A line (or balance it) in varying degrees. If done correctly, the listener should be triggering the reward circuit for successfully predicting the second and third A parts in their head... but also feeling the excitement of a brand new idea showing up when they ALMOST thought they had it figured out.

TRACK AND MELODY RELATIONSHIP

Max's music is all about how two melodies interact with each other and the polyrhythmic effect you get by different straight and swung rhythmic combinations of those two melodies (I'm counting the track arrangement as a melody here). For instance the repeating bass/guitar line of KP "Teenage Dream" has a fantastic almost-polyrhythmic feel when the 8th note push of the bass melody in the last beat of the first bar of the phrase interacts with the three repeating dotted quarter notes of the main vocal melody; the fourth push of the melody lands on the first 8th note of the next bar... that opposes the landing place of the bass melody by a whole beat... creating a temporary lopsided sensation rhythmically... which resolves incredibly with two strong simultaneous 8th notes hits in the bass line AND the vocal line (on the words "feel like"). Tension; release.

...and if the listener thought they had it figured out, the melody unexpectedly shifts to straight 8ths to turn around the second bar just in time to start another sequence of three repeating dotted quarters in perfect 4/4 time. Yep. Musical euphoria.  ... His music (and others like him) is literally filled to the brim of two melodic ideas twisting and turning with eachother rhythmically and poly-rhythmically. The various clashes and ultimate resolution of the rhythmic pushes are what make it so satisfying to listen to.

Even songs you might think don't have "part" for the bass.. still have a one bar rhythm in the track that sets the expectation so the melody can "play" with it and against it the entire song; that one bar rhythm usually stays the same for the same reason you keep the A melody lines the same. Max does one step further sometimes with those 1 bar rhythm type productions... he slightly swings the 16th feel so you have even more mathematically nuanced structures to fit the opposing melodies using blocks of 8th notes and dotted 8th notes. (EG "Love Me Like You Do" pre-chorus melody dotted eighth using the swing feel to bounce for instance... now listen in the background for the juno plucks +delay creating opposing 8th note pushes that build tension against that dotted 8th melody + kick pattern. You can hear the juno part very clearly 2:42 in at the break).

SEQUENTIAL MELODIC BALANCE

3.) You can also have a polyrhythm BUILDING as each melodic part is presented on top of the previous idea. Section by section. This compounds the brain reward system activity because if you did your job correctly, the listener should be expecting ANOTHER verse section but instead get a NEW section which musically complements the expected verse. That is why there are almost always TWO presentations of the verse frame before the channel or chorus drop; again to solidify the listener expectation (let them learn it basically) and derive the most possible pleasure when the new section arrives.

Here's an exercise you can do to help your brain start to recognize this:

1.) Take a Max song (like We Are Never Getting Back Together) and chop out the first melody he gives you (like instrument intro etc) verse section, the channel section, the support sections, the 2 minute mark songasm, the break melody, the ad libs etc... and keep the 4 or 8 bar lengths the same (mostly that is possible outside of some key moments) you should be able to cut and paste them vertically on a sequencer timeline... so that you can play all the sections simultaneously if you wanted.

2.) Mute everything except the intro and let it play,(set your sequencer on loop mode)

3.) One by one unmute each section so they are playing simultaneously. Sometimes the harmonies or bass line are changing (which is fine) so you may have some compounded dissonances but notice how awesome it sounds when the melodies start stacking... if you have an acapella bounce of the lead vocal... try using just that too to really get into how much groove exists SIMPLY with the lead vocal production alone.

4.) Try soloing verses with choruses, intros with post-choruses, choruses with channels, channels with verses, verses with channels AND choruses, or in many MAX tunes ALL OF THEM SIMULTANEOUSLY.

5.) Notice the musical groove that happens between these elements. Getting that balance just right IN THE RIGHT SQUENCE of the presentation to the listener is A LOT of what Max is doing SO REMARKABLY well.

6.) You can also do this with melodies.. like take the A part of the melody and stack it up on top of the B part so you can hear them jam together in realtime.

If you get good at this, you can take any MUSICAL IDEA AT ALL and make a potentially GREAT idea out of it because you know exactly how to complement the first idea. That's also why confidence is so important for great songwriting... sometimes the first presented idea doesn't really matter, you just need to GO WITH IT... because it only matters once you start running the other parts against it. In that way, a very basic idea of a melody can start to grow beautiful complexity but still maintain a level of accessibility to every-day people who hear it.

Really, these are only just a few of many things you can start to discover about high-end top10 songs like Max produces... there are many more observations to be made and techniques to give the listener the ride of their life every time they repeat a simple 4-min masterpiece. Hopefully this might help you along your way and stimulate your thinking.

[Adam B]

I think you made some great points there  I agree with everything except for maybe #7 -of course there are weak links, maybe his weak links are stronger than others weak links tho..

One huge thing you left out is his influence, given his position he can create trends and push the taste of the listeners.

[Cheiron Meets Thizz]

I'm sure many producers have done this very thing at different stages of their careers. Max's "secrets" are indeed laid bare for all to see if they want to take the time to observe certain patterns in his productions. However, it might be easier for you to figure out what's driving a guy like Max instead of focusing too much on the technicalities you may perceive in his finished catalogue; There is a certain type of inspiration that goes into the "writing" and melody process that you can't calculate with a formula because it would be simply too difficult for any human to consciously connect so many ideas in perfect harmony; meaning at some point you really do need to rely on the subconscious skills you've built to put some real flesh on that song bone.

Here are some of the things I think make him tick underneath all that fantastic musical decision-making:

1.) This guy loves music! I mean REALLY loves music. He's making music positively. It's hard to hear any cynicism or elitism in his music (just in his work ethic and expectations for himself). He doesn't seem to show any bias (only earnest tastemaking) when quoting reference material new and old. He's not "too good" for any type of music or sound which is why you have a hard time nailing his sound down; his formula doesn't require him to use the same references over and over... he's constantly reacting and taking inspiration from the world's music scene current and past; popular and unknown. He's skilled and not afraid to blend his favorite things about different music cultures together and is certainly not afraid of giving people what they want... in as many ways as he possibly can.

2.) He collaborates. Some ideas have to come from you; but the some of the best ones are ones you can curate rather than create. Judging by the sheer amount of collaborations in Max's catalogue, you can see he isn't afraid to share the burden (and credit!) of the song and use many ideas and creative input from many other talents (some much younger). This shows humility and wisdom.

3.) He KNOWS the hits - this can be said of a lot of hitmakers... but these guys have a respect for recorded music history and regularly are calling up "vibes" and flavors from the great hits of all the relevant decades to the target demographic.

4.) He LISTENS to music. If you are a serious student of production you have to be listening all the time to what the world's music scene is doing... In all of Max's tracks, personally, I can hear tons of his influences.. many are obvious classics, many are virtually unknown acts (outside of genre and sub-genre music) but he isn't generating these sounds out of thin air... they have context.. and thus, so do his productions. If you look around and listen, you can easily find less-popular bands that sound very similar to some of the more interesting or trendy elements in a Max production.

5.) He CARES what it sounds like. You should be asking why he uses iZ ADA converters, certain mic/pre combos, and choices of software (like XLN audio) and always has Serban Ghenea mix his productions when he can. I can tell you he is making tons of small great decisions in every aspect (from the writing to the engineering to the arrangement to the final production and presentation). He never leaves a crack or chip in the armor... always presenting a FULL representation of his idea. Many producers are just lazy or work too fast and don't know (or don't know how to do the detail work).

6.) It seems like he is getting every single category of music writing and production and engineering to the HIGHEST level respectively.. like if he's going to put a bass in his music.. he makes it the BEST possible bass sound that fits the palette of instrumentation he is using for that song; but also one that everyone could recognize as 'a typically great sound'. If he has a sample, that one sound is optimized for phase relationship with other instruments. If a chord has a harmony, the tuning is locked to be the most pleasant third or fifth you've ever heard from a guitar. Maybe that's why Max has been known to record guitar strings in a chord individually to keep the intervals sounding absolutely the best they can.

What you are hearing in a Max Martin production is literally "best-in-class" excellence in all possible areas from the melody (which is the BIGGEST priority to Max) to the lyric, to the beat production, to the arrangement, to the vocal engineering and performance, to the vocal post-production, to the psycho-acoustic engineering qualities of every single one of his layered parts, to the hook, to the mix engineering. The guy has no fear. Like he isn't afraid of sounding too similar to something else and he's not afraid of sounding too unique. Overall, just an enormous amount of confidence.

7.) There are literally no weak links in the track... from any angle. In opposition to many other producers who may selectively take certain musical qualities more seriously than others, leaves Max tracks sounding far better in comparison. Imagine if a producer makes amazing beats, and has perfect mix quality but has fragmented vocal lead melodies and some weak sauce lyrics at a critical emotional part of the music... a Max song without those loose ends will always out-perform the competition simply because he doesn't allow FAIL anywhere near his music.

----------

Now in case you wanted something more theoretical if you want to start over-thinking the details

- the A line of each melody idea is presented IDENTICAL the second time.  the first and second times you hear pretty much ANYTHING in the music are always identical up until the presentation of the changeup... or B line. This is critical for the AAAB, AABA, ABAB melody form to really have the intended effect. Here some thoughts as to why this is so important.

INTERNAL MELODIC BALANCE

The goal is to establish a very strong pattern so that the listener anticipates that A part while you delightfully surprise them with the B part. No extra small syllables or shifts in rhythm should be in the A parts because this destroys the integrity of their memory of the A part.

If you give people two or THREE strong "A" Lines, the very next thought in the listener's mind SHOULD be the assumption that ANOTHER identical "A" line will happen next... that is because you SHOULD have established an easily recognizable pattern. the MAGIC is in how you deal with that expectation by taking them to the "B" part instead, which should compliment the A line (or balance it) in varying degrees. If done correctly, the listener should be triggering the reward circuit for successfully predicting the second and third A parts in their head... but also feeling the excitement of a brand new idea showing up when they ALMOST thought they had it figured out.

TRACK AND MELODY RELATIONSHIP

Max's music is all about how two melodies interact with each other and the polyrhythmic effect you get by different straight and swung rhythmic combinations of those two melodies (I'm counting the track arrangement as a melody here). For instance the repeating bass/guitar line of KP "Teenage Dream" has a fantastic almost-polyrhythmic feel when the 8th note push of the bass melody in the last beat of the first bar of the phrase interacts with the three repeating dotted quarter notes of the main vocal melody; the fourth push of the melody lands on the first 8th note of the next bar... that opposes the landing place of the bass melody by a whole beat... creating a temporary lopsided sensation rhythmically... which resolves incredibly with two strong simultaneous 8th notes hits in the bass line AND the vocal line (on the words "feel like"). Tension; release.

...and if the listener thought they had it figured out, the melody unexpectedly shifts to straight 8ths to turn around the second bar just in time to start another sequence of three repeating dotted quarters in perfect 4/4 time. Yep. Musical euphoria.  ... His music (and others like him) is literally filled to the brim of two melodic ideas twisting and turning with eachother rhythmically and poly-rhythmically. The various clashes and ultimate resolution of the rhythmic pushes are what make it so satisfying to listen to.

Even songs you might think don't have "part" for the bass.. still have a one bar rhythm in the track that sets the expectation so the melody can "play" with it and against it the entire song; that one bar rhythm usually stays the same for the same reason you keep the A melody lines the same. Max does one step further sometimes with those 1 bar rhythm type productions... he slightly swings the 16th feel so you have even more mathematically nuanced structures to fit the opposing melodies using blocks of 8th notes and dotted 8th notes. (EG "Love Me Like You Do" pre-chorus melody dotted eighth using the swing feel to bounce for instance... now listen in the background for the juno plucks +delay creating opposing 8th note pushes that build tension against that dotted 8th melody + kick pattern. You can hear the juno part very clearly 2:42 in at the break).

SEQUENTIAL MELODIC BALANCE

3.) You can also have a polyrhythm BUILDING as each melodic part is presented on top of the previous idea. Section by section. This compounds the brain reward system activity because if you did your job correctly, the listener should be expecting ANOTHER verse section but instead get a NEW section which musically complements the expected verse. That is why there are almost always TWO presentations of the verse frame before the channel or chorus drop; again to solidify the listener expectation (let them learn it basically) and derive the most possible pleasure when the new section arrives.

Here's an exercise you can do to help your brain start to recognize this:

1.) Take a Max song (like We Are Never Getting Back Together) and chop out the first melody he gives you (like instrument intro etc) verse section, the channel section, the support sections, the 2 minute mark songasm, the break melody, the ad libs etc... and keep the 4 or 8 bar lengths the same (mostly that is possible outside of some key moments) you should be able to cut and paste them vertically on a sequencer timeline... so that you can play all the sections simultaneously if you wanted.

2.) Mute everything except the intro and let it play,(set your sequencer on loop mode)

3.) One by one unmute each section so they are playing simultaneously. Sometimes the harmonies or bass line are changing (which is fine) so you may have some compounded dissonances but notice how awesome it sounds when the melodies start stacking... if you have an acapella bounce of the lead vocal... try using just that too to really get into how much groove exists SIMPLY with the lead vocal production alone.

4.) Try soloing verses with choruses, intros with post-choruses, choruses with channels, channels with verses, verses with channels AND choruses, or in many MAX tunes ALL OF THEM SIMULTANEOUSLY.

5.) Notice the musical groove that happens between these elements. Getting that balance just right IN THE RIGHT SQUENCE of the presentation to the listener is A LOT of what Max is doing SO REMARKABLY well.

6.) You can also do this with melodies.. like take the A part of the melody and stack it up on top of the B part so you can hear them jam together in realtime.

If you get good at this, you can take any MUSICAL IDEA AT ALL and make a potentially GREAT idea out of it because you know exactly how to complement the first idea. That's also why confidence is so important for great songwriting... sometimes the first presented idea doesn't really matter, you just need to GO WITH IT... because it only matters once you start running the other parts against it. In that way, a very basic idea of a melody can start to grow beautiful complexity but still maintain a level of accessibility to every-day people who hear it.

Really, these are only just a few of many things you can start to discover about high-end top10 songs like Max produces... there are many more observations to be made and techniques to give the listener the ride of their life every time they repeat a simple 4-min masterpiece. Hopefully this might help you along your way and stimulate your thinking.

Thank you very much for your response. To say that I just appreciate your input would be an understatement. Do you have any examples of the bands that you can hear the influence of in his work?