The Ceremony

Max Martin and Cecilia Bartoli received the Polar Music Prize on June 16 2016 during ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Several Swedish artists honored the Laureates together with the The Royal Stockholm Philarmonic Orchestra, led by maestro Hans Ek. Artists performing in tribute to Max Martin and Cecilia Bartoli, included Peter Jöback, Seinabo Sey, Amanda Bergman, Ann Hallenberg, Lena Willemark and folk music group Väsen.

In his acceptance speech, Max Martin joked: “You blew my cover! I’ve managed to hide between two speakers in a basement for over 20 years, but you got me!”  He said that he has two secrets for writing the perfect pop song, firstly: “To steal. Yes. I confess. I have through the years ripped off giants like Abba, Kiss, Prince … and of course Lasse Holm." And the second, and most important is love from his wife Jenny and daughter Doris: “I could NOT have done it without you.” He concluded with: "to the Polar Music Prize, I can’t thank you enough for this honour.”

Growing up

Martin Sandberg was born in Stenhamra, Sweden, in 1971. His older brother introduced him to cassettes of rock band Kiss. For a long period, Kiss was all that he listened to. The dream of being a rock star was born.

Martin Sandberg attended one of Sweden’s public music-education programmes. He began playing French horn and learned to read music and write scores. After a time, he switched from French horn to trumpet, and then to drums and keyboard.

He attended the Södra Latin upper-secondary school to study music, but left to pursue a career as a singer in the hard rock group It’s Alive. Martin Sandberg now called himself Martin White. It’s Alive took part in the “Rock-SM” competition (Sweden’s national rock music championships) and toured Switzerland and Germany.

The Cheiron years

Martin Sandberg’s musical skills and qualities as a singer proved to be useful in the development of the Cheiron sound. Denniz Pop introduced a new, non-hierarchical approach to working in the studio, with several different songwriters working on the same song, contributing different elements. This approach has been compared to the method of painting in 15th century Italy: one person painted the hands, another the feet, a third the background.

Denniz Pop gave Martin Sandberg an artist name, Max Martin. The first time it was printed on a record was in 1994 on the single “This Is The Way” with E-Type. “Produced by Denniz Pop and Max Martin”. That phrase would eventually change international pop music.

Over the next few years at their studio at Fridhemsplan in Stockholm, the Cheiron producers created global hits for artists such as Backstreet Boys, Robyn and NSync, a boy band featuring Justin Timberlake. Denniz Pop died of cancer in 1998.

Baby one more time!

Max Martin himself wrote “…Baby One More Time”, Britney Spear’s debut single, which was released in autumn 1998. The song reached number one in all the countries of the world in which it was released, and was the first of Max Martin’s total of 21* number ones (in February 2016) on the Billboard Hot 100 list.

A true collaborator

Max Martin has continued to work in the spirit of Denniz Pop and has written and produced together with talented young Swedes who have become global songwriters such as Shellback and Tove Lo.

Max Martin has always worked on developing his songwriting art. Whilst others attempt to imitate, he leaves that sound behind and is constantly leading development, renewing the pop song as an art. His main focus is on the song and song melodies. His songs are immediate, yet also complex, and contain enough layers that they bear repeated listening. Max Martin’s choruses are sung all over the world.