![]() ![]() “You end up taking the hit out of the song.” Schulze agrees: “He’d be like, ‘Why do you have that part in the song? What’s the point? No one’s going to listen to that anyways. “Most of the time you want to do more, more, more, but then you end up spoiling the whole thing,” says Nwapa. “I was talking in between records, playing around, rapping, and he said, ‘This sounds good, can we do something with it?’” With no formal music training, Pop liked to keep things simple in the studio. “I was DJing in the same club as him,” Nwapa says. One of Pop’s first big successes as a producer came in the shape of DJing dentist Dr Alban, AKA Alban Nwapa, who followed up Swedish hit Hello Afrika with international smash (and Tampax ad soundtrack song) It’s My Life in 1992. ![]() Keep it simple … Pop in the studio with Dr Alban in 1991. “That is what we always tried to bring to the music,” adds Martin. Later, when ‘NSync – who had worked with Pop on debut single I Want You Back – started challenging the Backstreet Boys for boyband supremacy, Pop would deck the Cheiron team out in ‘NSync hoodies while recording the latter’s vocals. On other occasions, he instigated a city-wide treasure hunt for his studio mates, or suddenly declared that all the electricity in the studio would be turned off in three minutes because he was taking everyone bowling. Pop even built his own computer games, creating a shoot-’em-up inside a replica of the Cheiron studios. “We’d play video games – it was 80% fun, 20% work.” “He always brought fun to the studio,” remembers Martin. Denniz, meanwhile, was inspired by professional rebel Dennis the Menace. He was a fan of nicknames, later changing metalhead Martin Sandberg into Max Martin his new surname was both a dig at his muso friends’ rarified music tastes (he hated the complexity of jazz), and an acronym for Prince of Pick-ups in honour of his DJing prowess. In 1988, he released Gimme Some Mo’ (Bass on Me), his first single under his new name, Denniz Pop. In 1992, he quit and set up Cheiron, named after the centaur in Greek mythology who teaches Dionysus to sing and dance, and steadily brought in mutual acquaintances from Stockholm’s tightknit community of songwriters and producers. While the remix jobs were lucrative, he quickly felt the need to start making his own songs. “Really my only interest was to purchase records, and sit at home playing them.” A fan of funk and soul, he would often DJ at Ritz, Stockholm’s premiere gay club, and when he was 23 he co-founded SweMix, a remix service featuring a collective of 10 DJs. “It was really boring,” he is quoted as saying in John Seabrook’s book The Song Machine. Despite having Sweden’s music-focused educational system at his disposal, he refused to play an instrument, quitting recorder lessons after just three attempts. Pop was born in Tullinge, greater Stockholm, in 1963. ![]() You could feel the energy and how everybody working there had the same drive.”ĭag Volle, before he became Denniz Pop, DJing at the Ritz in Stockholm. Singer-songwriter and jury member Lisa Miskovsky agrees: “His idea about working together and sharing ideas and being creative struck me first time I entered the famous Cheiron studios. ![]() It wasn’t about making money, it was about making hits. We thought it was time to pay tribute to him and all the morals and values that he stood for. “The whole collaborative way of working, he started. “That was unheard of back then.” By 2013, the awards’ inaugural year, Schulze felt like Pop – who would have turned 60 this week – was starting to be forgotten. “He started a new business of Swedish youngsters writing songs for US and English artists,” he says. Schulze compares what Pop did with Cheiron studios to a hit factory like Motown. Past winners have included newcomers Winona Oak and Oscar Stembridge, while everyone from Avicii to Mabel to Snoh Aalegra have scooped the night’s biggest award, the Grand Prize, which celebrates Swedish success on an international stage. Under the stewardship of producer and songwriter Jacob Schulze, and an 11-person jury that also includes Martin and pop star Tove Lo, the awards aim to support the next generation of Swedish talent. “I didn’t know my way around a studio, but I guess he saw something.” His legacy lives on not just through his mentee, but also via Sweden’s annual Denniz Pop awards, which celebrate their 10th year this June. “When he first invited me to work with him, I don’t know what he saw in me,” the interview-shy Martin tells me. Recruited by Pop in 1993, Martin has since created 25 US No 1 singles, second only to Lennon and McCartney. ![]()
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