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Music Technology

The Swedish DJ Who Invented Industrially-Manufactured Pop Music (bbc.com) 110

Posted by BeauHD from the history-lessons dept.
"BBC Culture reports on DJ Denniz Pop (born Dagge Volle), who couldn't sing, play an instrument, or write a song but could mathematically craft a song from stitching together electronically programmed sounds and beats," writes Slashdot reader dryriver. "Pop was the musical brains behind acts ranging from the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Ace Of Base to Britney Spears, and trained Max Martin who wrote 22 Billbooard #1 hits for the likes of Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Katy Perry, P!nk, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande and Maroon 5 using a technique called 'Melodic Math.'" From the report: In a basement in Stockholm's suburbs, Pop brought together an elite team of eight songwriters and producers for a new venture -- Cheiron Studios -- in 1992. Over the next eight years they would go on to sell hundreds of millions of records through the likes of Ace of Base, 5ive, Robyn, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys, Westlife, *NSYNC and Britney Spears. The secret of their songwriting success was to marry the melody to the beat, not work against it, and to have a big chorus. The team at Cheiron followed Pop's example, experimenting in clubs across the capital with up to a hundred different versions of each new track -- meticulously documenting the combinations of beats and melodies that made the club crowds go wild. Through these experiments, an entirely new genre of music blossomed, one that seemed tailor-made for the age of manufactured boybands and girl groups. Having grown up in socialist Sweden, Pop's approach to writing music was almost utilitarian. Like so many Swedish success stories -- IKEA, H&M, Volvo and Spotify -- the Cheiron team wanted their product to appeal to the maximum amount of people, which in a country with a population of only nine million meant focusing outside the nation's borders. Pop designed his music to reflect the lives of the people who bought more music than anyone else -- American teenagers -- at least as far as he understood them from his basement in faraway Stockholm.
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The Swedish DJ Who Invented Industrially-Manufactured Pop Music More

The Swedish DJ Who Invented Industrially-Manufactured Pop Music

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  • Confusion (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Having grown up in socialist Sweden, Pop's approach to writing music was almost utilitarian.

    I didn't know our neighboring country did Cuba and Soviet Union right next to us. Might have made us rethink that Northern dimension, or NATO membership. Thanks Slashdot for these educational moments of clarity.

  • Nothing new.

    • More details here (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Two links to manufactured music from NPR:

      https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/10/421874671/episode-288-manufacturing-the-song-of-the-summer
      https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/07/05/137530847/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-hit-song

      1. Start with a beat track
      2. Hum, mumble sounds to the beat track
      4. Start filling in words to the mumbles
      5. Tweak the words, fill in gaps to make a half intelligible song
      6. Add a chorus
      7. Re-sample, sprinkle with samples to fill out the music
      8. Polish, give to some artis

  • . . . for time-traveling assassins, a la Predestination. Talk about improving the world for the better!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      I came here to write the same thing ! This guy should be on every terrorist list. Talk about destroying an entire art form, forcing hundreds of millions to listen to shit music, 'music' that isn't even meant to be listened to if I understand it correctly, but just danced to. If you can call it dancing as well...

      I've long heard that music tastes are formed during adolescence and kept for life, but after a few years and you listen back to this, there's no way you won't say "how did I ever listened to this ga

  • He is the quintessential hacker, albeit in the aureal sense rather than computer sense.

    • He is the quintessential hacker, albeit in the aureal sense rather than computer sense.

      Yeah, I respect music nerds. Try watching some of 12tone's videos on YouTube, and you finally know what it feels like for an IT semi-illiterate to listen to IT nerds talk shop :D

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Sure, total respect, now can we invent a time machine and assassinate the fucker before he unleashes the atrocious noises upon us all, it's like the who's who of dreadful manufactured music.

  • So basically Stock Aitken Waterman (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Company B's Fascination

    • Yup (Score:2)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      Except 5 years later. I'm failing to stop what exactly is new about this guys approach - people have been knocking out stitched together low quality (in the sense of the music, not reproduction) music since at least the times of the great composers. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard a classic piece and thought "But that sounds similar too..."

  • Short term gains, long term losses (Score:3)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @11:47PM (#58393274) Journal
    Pop music is pretty close to dead due to lack of variety

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      If that were true, then one could stand out by producing variety and get bigly rich.

      • If that were true, then one could stand out by producing variety and get bigly rich.

        You can, but only in some countries, and mostly in Europe. At the moment there is a bit of strangle hold on getting exposure in the US (and a handfull of other countries), you need the right contacts or lots of money to even get played in the radio or in the big club, and shit music do pay to be played which is why pop music is much worse in the US. The shit is actually forced on consumer regardless of whether they like it or not.

      • If that were true, then one could stand out by producing variety and get bigly rich.

        There is a lot of variety out there, the question you need to ask yourself is why it doesn't get on the radio, on the TV, in shopping centres, in CD stores, doesn't get into the Spotify recommendations or advertised highly on the Apple store.

        "producing variety" is the cheapest and easiest step in the incredibly complicated and highly expensive process of getting "bigly rich" in the industry. That is one of the main drivers of the lack of variety in the first place: playing it safe with music by formula as i

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          There's 5 decades of pop music if one really wants variety for variety's sake. Most new music is purchased for status reasons (to be "in"), and thus variety is a secondary issue.

          If you don't care about "new" or fashion, there are tens of millions of older tracks to select from. Current music producers can't compete with the existing library on variety and quality, but they can compete on trends and fashion, since it's the only weak point of the vast current catalog.

    • Pop music is pretty close to dead due to lack of variety

      Heh. Pop music is by the most varried of ALL genres. Other genres limit themselves to certain structures, where pop music just needs to be popular, and can take crossovers from any other genre if it is widely accessible enough.

      • Heh. Pop music is by the most varried of ALL genres. Other genres limit themselves to certain structures, where pop music just needs to be popular, and can take crossovers from any other genre if it is widely accessible enough.

        I don't think "pop music" is a genre, I think it encompasses multiple genres. So on the one hand, by virtue of being a catch-all term, pop is varied. On the other hand, mainstream popular music must now grab the listener as quickly as possible on the first listen. To achieve this new songs must have a lot of familiar content and they must be simple. This pushes mainstream popular music towards less variety and less depth. Thus I don't think pop music is the most varied of all genres: it's mostly recycled c

  • Pop has always been throwaaway, that's the reason the songs are only a couple of minutes long. To start with it was to fit on vinyl, now it's simply to ensure people will listen, not tune out and immediately go on iTunes/Amazon and buy the download. To learn that some of the most popular pop music was 100% manufactured is no great surprise to most of us,we've suspect it for the last 25 years. I think it's kind of sad that rather than trying to agonise over getting your emotions into music, really find a way

    • Re:A bit sad but no great surprise (Score:4, Insightful)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday April 06, 2019 @07:54AM (#58394032) Journal

      They still like pop music but they're starting grow out of it as they discover intellectual pursuits and need their music to deliver something with some substance or give them something to think about, not just mindless pap about boy-meets-girl.

      You sound like teenaged me. I DIDN'T LIKE pop music when I was a teenager because I was astonishingly pretentious and believed that NOT LIKING it made me superior to all the mindless masses who did like it.

      90% of everything is crap and pop music being a strict subset of "everything" is no exception. But sometimes a catchy tune is good and you're not somehow less good because lots of other people like it too.

      • But sometimes a catchy tune is good and you're not somehow less good because lots of other people like it too.

        This is definitely true and I also agree that one shouldn't be snobbish about popular culture. That said, it's also true that you can have your cake and eat it: there's plenty of good music that also has good tunes.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        But sometimes a catchy tune is good and you're not somehow less good because lots of other people like it too.

        I have to admit I do find many of the hits from the mentioned Swedish team "catchy". Whatever the heck they did, it friggen worked. Kudos.

  • 1. Find musicians who actually took the time to understand and learn music. Good use of English. Make them take out a huge loan to cover the costs of their music.
    2. Test all musicians to ensure they can perform, are photogenic. Can give an interview on music, their music and the meaning of their lyrics.
    3. Select the best skilled and most talented who can work well under interview conditions.
    4. When putting groups together to "play", "create", "compose", "write" music and lyrics make sure they h
  • I'm a fan of the BBC, but this is hardly "news" when there's whole book on it circa 2015... https://www.amazon.com/Song-Ma... [amazon.com]

    • I'm a fan of the BBC, but this is hardly "news" when there's whole book on it circa 2015... https://www.amazon.com/Song-Ma... [amazon.com]

      Sure - I've known for a long time that most pop music is written by a few folks in Sweden, and is just a collection of hooks without actual meaning, and lots of autotune and fake emoting.

      But let's not make the mistake of expecting that a news story not be made because we've personally already heard it before. Some folks haven't.

      • Sure - I've known for a long time that most pop music is written by a few folks in Sweden, and is just a collection of hooks without actual meaning, and lots of autotune and fake emoting.

        I don't like most of that stuff either but I don't think what you say about hooks is fair. One could make the same criticism of Mozart also. Mozart was a tunesmith and mostly wrote totally abstract music with no meaning. That doesn't stop him being widely considered a genius.

  • Just what we needed, a clear, scientific explanation of why pop sucks so much.

  • The evidence before the court is Incontrovertible!
    There's no need for the jury to retire.
    In all my years of judging,
    I have never heard before
    Of someone more deserving
    Of the full penalty of law

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