Given that he’s widely regarded as the most successful songwriter-producer of the century, it’s no surprise that many have attempted to examine Max Martin’s back catalogue in a bid to work out just how he’s managed to create so many hits.
Various theories have been posited, and now Miley Cyrus – an artist who Martin has worked with in the past – has been digging into the specifics.
Her comment came while she was speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about Bass Persuades, her new album. Funnily enough, it was when Lowe asked Cyrus about what makes her happiest about being with a different Maxx – her fiance and collaborator, Maxx Morando – that she mentioned Martin’s name.
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Cyrus contrasted Morando’s endearing “unknowing” with some of the people she’s worked with in the past: “I’ve been able to be in the room with some of the greatest producers and songwriters and artists of all time, and they know too much,” she explained. “They’ve lost their questioning and their searching because they know the answer. They’re like, ‘Hey, well, when I was in Sweden with Max Martin, he taught me this. So you always have to put a chord on the final chorus that’s not on the first because that’s repeat factor.’”
Martin is indeed known for mixing things up in his final choruses, using not only different chords but also counter melodies that were introduced elsewhere in the song – often in the preceding bridge or pre-chorus.
And, despite suggesting that it’s possible to think too much about songwriting formulas, Cyrus admits that this one of Martin’s definitely butters the parsnips.
“It works, by the way – I’ve done it,” she says. “I was always like… I don’t think music is math… [but] he actually knows what’s up because every time I do it I’m like, ‘Damn, I do like to listen to this song over and over and over again and it’s because I threw a random chord in the final chorus.’”
Cyrus also offered an insight into how the other Maxx – Morando – helped her during the making of Bass Persuades, specifically referencing fifth track Aftermath. This, she says, was originally written as a “very sad ballad,” but it was Morando who convinced her that she should take it in a different direction.
“I was playing the record as it kind of was with Maxx, and I said, “Be brutal – tell me what you don’t like.’ He’s like, ‘God, that Aftermath song is boring. I’m just gonna be honest with you.’ So [I was] like, ‘What would you do with it?’”
It was Morando that suggested that the song should have its “boom, boom, boom, boom” backbeat, and Cyrus says that she quickly realised that he was right.
“It’s like, I was going for the Thom Yorke-like vibe. He’s like, ‘No, boring.’ And so he made that song so much better.”
