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Comment by sametmax | Hacker News Reader

"Popular success really is more art than science"

Given that the last decade of hits can be hugely attributed to only 2 people in the industry, I have a hard time buying this one.

Max Martin (https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin) famously manufactured hits for Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5, Pink, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, Kesha and The Backstreet Boys. Between 1999 and 2016 alone, he was responsible for 21 hits. That's more than one a year without any pause.

Lukasz Gottwald (https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Luke) did the rest

So unless karma made them really lucky, there is some kind of formula, and they figured it out.

Talent alone can't account for this, as they are, all in all, more successfull than the Beatles or Michael Jackson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

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Couldn't those guys' track of success be due to cronyism in the music industry?

Their songs are formulaic. I'm sure many of these 2 guys' songs are played in this video that cycles through a long list of hit songs which have the same progression (transposed into the same key so the similarities can more easily be noticed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

So perhaps anyone can write the songs, but not everyone has access to the pop stars (or access to these 2 guys).

I'm not an expert song writer myself, but I am a musician and lover of music. Based on the fact that there's awesome music noone's ever heard of or that doesn't get as much play as some lesser quality music, I have to echo the common sentiment that the music industry is a fashion show/popularity contest with gatekeepers (still). Not saying it's not all a sham, I think the difference that comes from the human performing is huge, and I love to see and hear that.

I think there may be some gatekeeping but also I think there really is a formula that more people like- and by taking ideas and tweaking them to sound sweeter and more energetic you get more sales. The bigs guys are just walking around and either signing talent to produce ideas for the pop-filter-Machine, or stealing their riffs wholesale.

Where is the gate keeping? Anyone can get their music on iTunes, Spotify, etc. by going through a company like CD Baby. Getting noticed on the other hand is harder.

I don’t know how it works with pop music, but hip hop artists have a long history of selling CDs out of a trunk, marketing through barber shops, etc. and going around the establishment until they get noticed.

I have to admit I find many of those Martin & Gottwald tunes "catchy" for whatever reason. Cronyism alone can't create catchiness. Hard to argue with success. Bring on the cheese! Note that many tunes which use the common pop chord progressions also fail.

In my opinion the "big pop guys" you mention are:

A) Fantastic producers -- the production from these guys is phenomenal, and IMHO this is what really "makes the song".

B) Great at writing to a formula. The tunes are "catchy" but I cannot think of anything that would be considered really innovative musically.

There's no sin in that necessarily... it certainly takes talent to "know what works" and "know what doesn't"... and for the type of pop music they do (largely teen pop and other pop formulas), formula is fine.

I will say that pop producers like these guys tend to be really solid in the groove / rhythm department, in particular.

C) Great at artistic collaboration... big pop outfits now write in large groups. Knowing the way many musicians are, that's an accomplishment in itself. :) This probably contributes to the "solid song that isn't innovative" aspect... all the left-fieldisms of an artist are probably smoothed out. But again, this pop.

Overall the music product is a professional creation, designed for a market that always was and always will be half song-and-dance youth fashion show as one of the posters alluded to. :) Not a music style I care for personally.

But a popular one, and it takes something to do it as well as these guys do.

Re: "[not] really innovative musically."

Innovation is hard to objectively measure. I judge most music by whether I enjoy it, not how "innovative" it is. Innovation is nice, but "like" is much better. Most styles are cyclical and borrow from the past. Disco-esque music has come back twice. Anything "new" is probably just borrowing bits and pieces from different eras.

If it were easy, anybody with money would make a hit. If they make a catchy song, I give them kudos regardless of how they made their sausage. To quote a pop song: "Shuddup and dance!"

> If it were easy, anybody with money would make a hit.

But anyone with money and the right relationship with the distribution gatekeepers pretty much does.

I sometimes go to amateur music sites, and most of it sucks. Gems are really hard to find. Better distribution wouldn't make it un-suck.

True, it could take multiple factors, such as the best writers plus the best arrangers/producers plus the best musicians plus the best distribution channels. But all those prerequisites still means it's not trivial to do right. It's like the NBA: the best players and best coaches and best owners tend to find each other and gather.

I agree with your point about the producers being talented and most times the driving force behind these hits.

What really isn't that clear with these songs, and I believe that's why so many people dislike them (altough they agree they sound catchy) is because the performer of the song isn't necesarilly the creative force behind the song; as it was proven with the video of how the song "Middle" came to be. The girl that sings the song actually played little part in the creative process, and is part of the song because of her voice and probably looks.

A good comparison could be with Hollywood movies. No one can argue that they are extremely produced and market focused; so, when you hear a song by Katy Perry or by <replace_with_trendy_name> is the performer a good actor or a good director, or both?

I never understood why people care how many people are part of the creation of music. The overall product should be better if every part of it (writing, producing, perfoming, ...) is executed by an expert in the field and not by a single person.

>Hard to argue with success.

It is easy to argue with success if you could prove it was due to cronyism. :)

>Cronyism alone can't create catchiness.

I don't see how cronyism could create catchiness at all but cronyism could account for the perception that only two people can do it when the actual number could be a much highe.

That's a bit unfair of a comparison, both McCartney and Lennon have more hits than Max Martin. It's only when you look at the Beatles specifically does Martin have more success in terms of "hits".

And technically talent _could_ account for it. If there were some kind of formula, it could be discerned from the songs they wrote and you'd have a more even playing field as more people could figure out the formula.

> Talent alone can't account for this, as they are, all in all, more successfull than the Beatles or Michael Jackson.

Yes it can. They could simply have more talent than the Beatles or Michael Jackson when it comes to manufacturing hits.

Why couldn’t it be a combination of talent and formula? If it was solely a formula then more people would be having their success by following the same exact formula. Unless only they have the required ingredients. And whose to say their hit-manufacturing genius isn’t part of that recipe... in addition to the access to capital and access to market and brand recognition that makes popular artists choose to work with them for their best songs?

Absolutely, imo the article missed who the pop music factory is copying. It isn’t always other pop artists, it’s other artists doing well in niches, that get pop-ified.

“”” ... The constant iteration of tracks, all produced by the same formula, can result in accidental imitation—or, depending on the jury, purposeful replication. Seabrook recounts an early collaboration between Max Martin and Dr. Luke. They are listening, reportedly, to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”—an infectious love song, at least by indie-rock standards. Martin is being driven crazy by the song’s chorus, however, which drops in intensity from the verse. Dr. Luke says, “Why don’t we do that, but put a big chorus on it?” He reworks a guitar riff from the song and creates Kelly Clarkson’s breakout hit, “Since U Been Gone.” “””

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/hit-cha...

They had an inkling of that with their shape score thing when comparing Royals and Fancy at the end.

Pop music is a folk music, fundamentally dependent on its own history, but it just as fundamentally has to cannibalize the music underground in order to stay relevant.

> there is some kind of formula, and they figured it out

Of course there's a formula: https://youtu.be/yBDNvlvR8vA (link is Pop Music 101 to save you a click if you've already heard it)

I think there's more to the world than "formula" vs "talent".

Skill would be one possible explanation. As would focus. So too could be having an emotional distance from the performances.

Perhaps if Max Martin and Lukas Gottwald had formed a band in 1998 they wouldn't have a single top hit because they would have been putting their attention into performing, touring, and being celebrities. Instead somebody else might have been the producer whose narrow focus was tracking pop music, taking popular artists, and figuring out how to write a song that would take them to #1.

You could say the same thing about Picasso, or Leonardo da Vinci. Did they figure out some kind of formula?

They may have thought so. One approach to creativity is to invent a formula and then try to follow it -- perhaps to the point of failure. This is a way to get past the "too many possibilities" mental block.

And of course they're welcome to try a new formula when they get sick of the old one.

Yes but defining things this way seems to totally breakdown a distinction between 'art' and 'science'. To the point about whether an individual dominating his field is proof that his technique is science it's lacking. Dr. Luke may be Euler or he may be Picasso.

Do you really put "i kissed a girl" in the same ball bark as gernica ?

I honestly liked the first and not the second.

However, there is nothing original about the first. The second one is a once in history landmark.

This has always been an interesting question.

You can look at luck as someone's luck in particular, or people's luck in general.

The odds that any one person at a craps table rolls a 7 first are low, but the odds that someone at the table rolls a 7 first are a lot higher.

Same thing with success in the way you mention it.

Movies famously follow a formula as well.

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