The Music Makers
The more I learn about popular music, the convinced I become about 1997 being ground zero for pop culture's decline.
Like all sectors of the entertainment industry, pop music suffered a marked collapse--not just in sales, but in quality--in the late 90s.
What happened ca. 1996-1999 that brought popular music so low? Did every act suddenly endure a catastrophic loss of inspiration?
It turns out they didn't have to. Pretty much all chart-topping pop is now written by a handful of highly placed songwriters. Three of the most prominent have connections to a particular songwriting group. The man at the center of it all is Martin Karl Sandberg, AKA Max Martin.
Martin Karl Sandberg (born February 26, 1971), known professionally as Max Martin, is a Swedish music producer and songwriter. He rose to prominence in the mid-1990s after making a string of major hits for artists such as the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and 'N Sync. Some of his earlier hits include "I Want It That Way" (1999), "...Baby One More Time" (1999) and "It's My Life" (2000).
Martin's big breakout moment came when he co-wrote and co-produced a majority of the tracks on the Backstreet Boys' album Millennium. That album still holds the US record for most copies shipped, and it's among the best-selling albums of all time with over 40 million copies sold.
And it came out in 1999.
Related: Music Ground Zero
Martin has gone on to write, co-write, and produce hit songs for Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Christina Aguilera, and Taylor Swift. He's written multiple songs for Katy Perry, including the irredeemably pozzed "I Kissed a Girl".
Predictably, he's written and produced for GoGurrrl of the moment Ariana Grande
A quick glance at Martin's catalog reveals Martin's M.O. He writes catchy ear worm beats that disarm listeners against lyrics that encourage conformity with post sexual revolution death cult anti-morality.
These songs are overwhelmingly aimed at girls and young women.
Martin isn't doing his evil work alone, either. He has three influential disciples.
Martin's influence in the music field is also seen in the effect he has had on co-producers. The music site Stereogum singles out three people as his "disciples", Savan Kotecha, Dr. Luke, and Shellback. Time Magazine reported that "There’s a cluster of high-powered songwriters who are based in Sweden, and the grandmaster is Max Martin"
The weaponization of pop music is real. It's due to a coordinated, top-down effort by a small cartel of taste-makers, and it started in the late 1990s.
How much are you willing to bet we'd find a similar pattern operating in other media at the same time?
A likewise small, dedicated group of artists are striving to retake popular entertainment from the death cult grandmasters. Make no mistake, restoring truth, goodness, and beauty to pop culture will be an uphill slog. Men of goodwill with artistic gifts are morally bound to try.
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