Reason behind Max great melodies

[Dagge]

My educated guess is that reason why Max coins so great melodies could be divided into three parts. First one is talent for melodies, which I think is least important. Second one is Max meticulous character connected with self-imposed high standards, where he works and works until he find himself satisfied, which astonishly small number of authors commit to (as Benny Anderssen said in an interview). This approach is similar to the one of ABBA.

Third is Max taste for melodic 'hit sounding' songs, which I think is most important component. He works on melodic line until he likes it himself, and he has discipline to pass only the best melodies, not being satisfied with less (which is highly important but not easy to do constantly). I cannot imagine someone who likes r&b or punk to be able to coin great pop melodies. You just have to like it yourself, then you do it until you like it, you are your own most critical music fan. Your job is to satisfy yourself and your taste only. Using tricks and rules helps of course and is also a necessary component.

Re. last paragraph I could confirm it, I consider myself songwriting amateur but I have a very 'commercial' taste. I could 'smell' a hit on a mile when I hear it. I believe by using rules and self-imposed high standards I (or anyone else with that 'skill') could tweak melodies until they start to sound hittish. But I often give up on a song before I am satisfied personally (problems with self-commitment). You cannot tweak hit melodies if there is not someone who can tell you if you nailed a hit. If you like hits yourself, then it is only matter of commited time to tweak until you are satisfied. This ofcourse is not easy because as Max said you have to 'kill your babies' all the time - not so easy to do after spending hours and days of your precious time (which could be spent seemingly more productive).

Re. Max I admire him for his work habits, his high self-discipline and self-imposed standards which he commits to all the time. With such habits you can be successful at almost any profession.

Have a nice day

[Andreasl1984]

I'm gonna go way simplier then that. The reason Max coins great hits? He listens to hits, and takes what's great about them and makes it better, or makes complete new songs out of pieces from them.
Roxette did the same, probably Abba too. If you look back in history you can find the "pre-historic-monsters" of the hits they developed into "new songs". And what's funny when mentioning roxette, people don't notice this, even myself didn't, that's why Max Martin is a genius.
He stole the rhythm and the melody (almost changed it at the "end") of Roxette's Joyride in Taylor Swift's Blank Space, but it's stolen in such an elegant matter that 90% of the people in the population don't notice it. The song is different, the tempo, the feel, her way of singing. But if you listen carefully it's there and it's Genius!
And before everyone starts hating me and threat to block or ban me from the forum BS'ing my idol Max Martin. Max Martin himself admitted to stealing others work for his music in his Polar Prize speech. It might sound dishonest or stupid, but it's really the way to make hit songs. Eventually i will prove it myself in the near future. But i can't at the moment other then this commentary from a famous DJ that worked with Dagge.
"I heard your song one time and liked it, it feelt really promising, might be the next single" (one day went), and it WAS the next single! And he wanted to work on it (i said no tho! It needs no work, it needs better vocalrecordings), others he showed it said the same, etc. And what's even funnier is he DJ:ed the song that my track was "based off" and he hasn't a clue it was actually that song that made me do my track! Haha. Kinda funny, but just shows how you can "manipulate" people into believing it's a new song, when really it's not. Or i guess it depends on how you look at it. Consider this My track has different lyrics, different tempo, different backing track, maybe different chords but the melody is "the same" or VERY very similar! I don't want to BS this guy, he's actually trying to help out now. Finding "another producer", cause the demo vocalist basically said she didn't like what has been done to her other tracks, and he admitted to not being a "pop producer".
But it's still not out yet. Struggling with finding the "right" people to work with. Cause i feel it's not "right", it needs more work, bigger vocals then the demo vocalist can deliver, unfortunaly. And i don't have the contacts, so i'm looking for a already "famous producer" that can do the last 10% like add a choir of different voices in the chorus/bridge, etc so the track will kick friend.
Anyways, that's my analyze of Max Martin. Hope he likes it, if he reads this, hahaha!

[j.fco.morales]

Blank Space bones were already done when Max and Johan worked on the song.

[bugmenot]

Blank Space bones were already done when Max and Johan worked on the song.

TS trying to make us to believe in it but she is a liar.
In her phone voice memo she's saying

I brought in this idea called "Blank Space," and this was me playing it for Max and Johan for the first time and they're shouting out these production ideas

http://genius.com/7487381


Not "I wrote it at home and they liked it" like she's saying about previous songs.

In this Memo she can showing some lyrics ideas with melody Max or Shellback gave her ten minutes ago (or whole instrumental track with topline) and record lyrics for "Voice Memo". But she made it looks like she accidentally wrote a half of a song. Max reacted "Awesome" to lyrics. Not melody.

[AlexanderLaBrea]

What do you mean? She's mumbling through half of the idea. No I'm pretty sure she wrote the core of the song (you gotta give it to her that she has proven herself a very competent pop writer), Max and Shellback produced a track for it afterwards and maybe helped writing the mid 8.

[bugmenot]

Max and Shellback produced a track for it afterwards and maybe helped writing the mid 8.

Would you pay 66 % of your songwriting credits for this impact?
If Taylor would need ONLY mid 8 she won't hire them. They no doubts wrote, re-wrote, over-wrote, modified at least 2/3 of every song's melodies.

Why I stay up too late got nothing in my brain and Once upon a time a few mistakes ago is the same melody and nothing like her previous melodies if she saying she wrote it before?

Why she publish voice memo from studio, not voice memo with that her idea she should record before? (She is saying that she always records everything.)

[AlexanderLaBrea]

Firstly, in the music business you generally don't have that mentality like "WAIT, I wrote 36 words, you only wrote 34, give me 52%!!" No, you split equal parts, especially when you're unfathomably rich like Max, Johan, Taylor. Then again we don't know the split either... And yes obviously they did re-writes together based on her idea in the memo, which is basically the verse and the chorus. Then they produced it, rewrote words, phrasings, mid-8 melodies, adlibs etc. Why she didn't publish the voice memo from home? Obviously more interesting to hear supoer producer Max Martin's initial reaction than hearing her cats meow in the background, no? And also, as she's said, to show of 3 methods of writing. With Tedder she e-mailed her idea to him (where she's playing piano), Antonoff sent her a track, and with Max/Shellback she wrote in the studio. From scratch or from ideas like this.

If you don't believe it. Max himself has explained how they wrote "We're never ever getting back together" and that she had written most of it. Except "wee-eee" which Shellback wrote (Cheiron documentary) 

[j.fco.morales]

bugmenot, come on...

Alexander was very eloquent.

[bugmenot]

Contradiction — would Martin put his name on song that was "done"? Song surely wasn't "done".

Why she didn't publish the voice memo from home?

Or even why she records the same "idea" of song twice instead of giving them to listen to a home-record? Because there is none.

I can't take easily so noticeably press-crafted and over-publicized stories of "how I am a songwriter".

[AlexanderLaBrea]

Hold up... Taylor had released 4 albums before even working with Max. 4 albums with multiple songs written solely by her  that made her one of the biggest artists in the world. So yeah, I think you can call her a songwriter.

"Would Martin put his name on song that was "done"?

The song wasn't done!! Have you even listened to the memo? But the main melodies were there for the verse and the chorus. The rest they wrote together - that's why they have writing vredets...
And why would she play them some voice memo from home when she's sitting in the room with a guitar already?

Im astonished that you choose to pick on Taylor when there are SO many artists out there in interviews telling stories about "when I wrote this song..." but you know they had zero to do with it.

[nanofives]

I think the only thing that is concerning is the fact that Taylor co-produced all her songs except Max Martin's ones. Why would that be? Almost any artist shares the production with Max (I know JT and the weeknd did, they are exceptions).

[bugmenot]

artists telling stories

Artists doesn't include "voice memos" in ALBUM.
Beck in 2015, Daft Punk in 2014, Mumford & Sons in 2013 and so on didn't make hour long interview with Grammy about how they are songwriters. I never told she don't write songs, don't attribute to me something I never said, but... everybody can write songs after 10 000 hours of a practice with right teacher, it's not a secret. I am talking that she intentionally exaggerate her "talent" in media and even people on this forum believe she is (almost) as good as Max Martin...

Her team have strong media strategy about her "songwriter" image, she is lying she is self-taught guitar-player, self-taught writer and taught herself to use a Garage Band, while her parents hired expensive music teachers for all of these three disciplines. Old story, still can be googled.

Why would she play them some voice memo from home when she's sitting in the room with a guitar already?

Why would she RECORD something she already recorded at home? For Martin and Johan voices? Do you believe they screams so much for every of 100 "ideas" they sharing during sessions? Or it was staged to be included on album?

The fact is she never said "I wrote it". The fact is she said "I brought in this idea called "Blank Space," and this was me playing it for Max and Johan for the first time and they're shouting out these production ideas".

Do you call the song the production idea? I would call the idea — the topic (about her media image and so on, what this song is about.)

[j.fco.morales]

This is like discussing against a wall.

[bugmenot]

Don't be a wall.

[AlexanderLaBrea]

Why would she RECORD something she already recorded at home? For Martin and Johan voices? Do you believe they screams so much for every of 100 "ideas" they sharing during sessions? Or it was staged to be included on album?

The fact is she never said "I wrote it". The fact is she said "I brought in this idea called "Blank Space," and this was me playing it for Max and Johan for the first time and they're shouting out these production ideas".

Do you call the song the production idea? I would call the idea — the topic (about her media image and so on, what this song is about.)

What are you talking about? Listen to what she says. They keep a phone on record at all times in the studio (like MOST professional songwriters do), this is a snippet of that recording from where she initially played a song idea that she had that eventually became Blank Space. They're shouting ouy production ideas as she calls it, which is the purpose of keeping a recording device on, to avoid forgetting spur of the moment ideas.