12 Lessons for Creatives and Innovators
When you think of the greatest stars and bands in music history you might think of artists like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Madonna or Taylor Swift. They are in fact among the most successful artists ever when it comes to number one hits. Taylor Swift has 11, Michael Jackson has 13 and The Beatles have 20. There’s only one to beat them all and I’m sure you’ve never heard his name.
Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Justin Timberlake, Pink, Maroon 5, Taylor Swift or Adele all have one thing in common and that’s the collaborator, songwriter and music producer Max Martin – the man who happens to be the most famous musician you never heard of with 25 number one hits under his belt to this day.
Max Martin Music Production Creativity Innovation Creatives Innovators
Kostenloser PDF Download
Dieses Essay mit den 12 Prinzipien für Innovative und Kreative ist auch als kostenloser PDF Download auf Deutsch verfügbar. Hier gehts zum Download.
12 Lessons for Creatives and Innovators
12 Lessons for Creatives and Innovators from the Master
Someone who is capable to consistently produce world hits over decades in an industry that is all about the newest, hottest act, must have some valuable insights for creatives and innovators to learn from. No matter whether you are a musician, another type of creative or an innovator in business; if you want to stay relevant, you can learn from Max.
That’s why I compiled the “Best of Max Martin” and translated his insights into learnings for creators or innovators out there. The basis for this is one of Max’s very rare interviews that he gave when receiving the Polar Prize in Sweden – one of the most prestigious prizes in the music industry with other laureates like Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Sting or Patti Smith.
“In the last 20 years, no composer in the world has written melodies as sustainable or as widespread as those of Max Martin. Right now, at this very moment, someone, somewhere in the world will be singing a hit song written and produced by Max Martin. With his ear for song melodies, his musical precision and craftsmanship, he has refined and developed the world's popular music.” That’s how the Polar Prize describe Max’ impact on the world.
Max Martin Music Production Creativity Innovation Creatives Innovators
Innovation Creativity Creatives Innovators Max Martin Music
Hits Baby Every Time
Let’s start the time machine and go back to 1998. It’s the year when Max Martin released a track with an unknown 16-year-old from the American South. The song climbed to the top of the charts and eventually became a number one hit single in every country on the planet where the track was released. It was Britney Spears’ breakthrough hit “Baby One More Time”.
The melody of the chorus came to him in his bed. As Max recalls in the interview, he was very tired but because he kept a recording device next to his bed, he recorded some snippets of an idea. After recording, he went back to bed again. But more ideas flew by, so he got out of bed yet again and recorded more till there was nothing left. He even quietly sang “hit me baby one more time” that night, trying not to wake up his wife in the bed next to him. He thought, “Mmh, that’s pretty good.”
“You think you might remember it when you wake up the next morning – but you never do”, says Max. And that leads us to lesson 1 for creatives and innovators:
Lesson 1: When inspiration strikes you have to be ready and willing to take notes, do a demo or prototype of the idea immediately so you can work on it later. The mind is great at having ideas, not keeping them.
Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
Max Martin Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
The 1-Second-Rule
I’m sure you have the sound of Britney Spears’ hit single in your head and could tell me in detail, how the song starts. Like many other of Max’s songs, you recognize “Baby One More Time” within 1-2 seconds because the piano sound is so unique and memorable.
That’s not a coincidence. This is a part of Max’ philosophy according to which a song must be recognizable in the first few seconds. This stems from a DJ-friend of his and he noticed that people on the dancefloor want to know and recognize the songs. That’s what keeps them on the dancefloor. What’s the lesson from that?
Lesson 2: No matter if it’s music, any type of product or a brand. Creatives and innovators should strive for making the project unique and recognizable. This improves your chances for success dramatically.
The Sixth Band Member
Let’s switch from one 90s sensation to another. The first time the Backstreet Boys left the United States of America was when they hopped on a plane to Stockholm to meet Max. The Backstreet Boys developed their sound together with him in Sweden starting from the Mid-90s. He helped them find their voice and that’s why they themselves call him the sixth member of the legendary boy band. They traveled to Stockholm again 20 years later in 2016 to give the laudatio at the awards show where Max received his Polar Prize.
There’s something interesting to learn from the origin story of the hit song “I Want It That Way”. Max forgot about this song for a while when it was only a demo. It was badly done and he didn’t want to show it to people, Max recalls.
When the Swedish songwriter once did a presentation to somebody in the music industry and played a couple of songs, the guy asked if there’s something else that Max could play him. Apparently, nothing struck a chord up to this point. Max wasn’t comfortable with playing the demo which turned into one of his first world hits because he was ashamed of it. However, the music industry big shot said “Yes! That’s the one!”. Why is this story relevant for creatives and innovators?
Lesson 3: Sometimes you don’t know what you have. You must show your ideas to others and see what resonates. It’s okay to be ashamed of your ideas. Vulnerability and exposure open the door to your best creative work and reflected innovation.
It’s the Empathy, Stupid!
Even though Max never got famous, he was a decent singer himself in the past and sang in different bands. Therefore, he knows what it means to be a singer, to stand in front of the mic and perform. Thanks to that practical, real-life experience, he has the vocabulary and the empathy for the singers he’s collaborating with. Let’s get straight to the next learning:
Lesson 4: Empathy is key. It doesn’t hurt to speak the language of the people you work with to get the best out of them, to understand their needs and produce great stuff together as a creative collective or for them as your clients.
Creatives Innovators Innovator Creative Creativity Innovation
Max Martin Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
The Secrets to Success? Steal and Collaborate
A man like Max gets asked a lot what the secrets are to creating a perfect pop song. His answer is simple: Steal from the best.
In addition, working together with others and exposing yourself to them is crucial to make it long term. You must put yourself in situations where you need to keep up with the exciting development and talent of others. It’s like athletes who need better people around them to evolve. If it becomes easy, you should start worrying.
In fact, it’s a good thing that the new kids on the block are coming after your job. You should not keep the next generation away, you should welcome new talent in.
“Every creative person has an ego but you have no choice than let other people’s talent touch and inspire you”, says Max at the end of the interview.
Lesson 5: Learn from the best and collaborate. Turn down your ego and let other talents enrich your work.
Finish the Work
The most beautiful way to start working on a new song is when you are inspired and the work happens by itself in a state of flow. Sooner or later though, this phase ends and you’ll still need to finish the work. Where inspiration ends, the work of the craftsman begins.
Max explains that when making music he utilizes his “toolbox with problem-solving-formulas”. Once inspiration fades and you get stuck, start using the tricks from the toolbox. These tools and tricks are coming from theory as well as from practice and experience.
The more you have in your toolbox, the better you can finish your work. A song should never start with the toolbox in mind but you most likely finish the work with it.
Lesson 6: Train and fill your toolbox with various creativity or innovation methods that help you to get unstuck and finish the work. However, there should be an inspiring idea or valuable purpose at the beginning of the process to guide your usage of the tools.
Max Martin Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
Staying Relevant: You Are the Problem
According to the music journalist who interviewed Max at the Polar Prize, hit producers like the Swedish maestro who compete on the highest level and create number one hits usually last for six or eight years before they fade out and become irrelevant for the latest trends in pop culture.
In the early 2000 after these six to eight years it seemed like Max’s time had come and that he reached his expiration date. His typical Swedish sound was heard too often and got copied too much. The hits didn’t come as frequently as before and Max took a courageous step: He closed down his studio and stopped producing for a while.
Just to remind you: Max was doing extraordinarily well and did dominate the pop industry with acts like the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, NSYNC and more. But in the 2000s the music changed. Other producers with their signature sound like Pharrell Williams entered the scene.
Max found himself in a place where he thought everybody else was wrong and he was right. But of course, he sooner than later understood that he was in the wrong and the world had moved on. “That’s what popular culture is all about, it moves on. And I didn’t”, explains Max.
Max Martin Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
Exploration and Exploitation
He stopped producing for a moment and started exploring. In this phase, he moved from Sweden to New York and was open to new influences. Luckily for the world, it did not take him long to reinvent himself and reach the top of the charts again. This time with a new sound. He entered a new chapter in his career with the hit single “Since You’ve Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson.
Max had his first number one hit with Britney Spears in 1998. In his first ten years that followed till 2008, Max managed to create three additional number one hits with the Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry and Pink while producing dozens of very well performing global chart entries.
But as just mentioned, the old Max-hit-formula did not work like it used to anymore. The world moved on and so did Max with his exploration of new sounds and influences. After the exploration phase, he came back stronger than ever.
In his second ten-year-period after his break from producing, Max topped the charts a whooping 18 times with Katy Perry (7), Taylor Swift (4), Britney Spears (2) and Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Maroon 5, The Weeknd and Justin Timberlake (each 1). That makes his post-exploration-era of the 2010s 4.5x more successful than this breakthrough-era of the 90s and 2000s. The exploration and the courage paid off. Check out this YouTube video if you want to see the entire history of Max Martin's hit songs.
This example illustrates that you are likely not the most successful version of yourself when you start. The sweet spot comes later when you have more experience but managed to stay hungry and curious to apply this experience in novel ways.
Lesson 7: Be courageous enough to leave what made you successful in the past when the time has come. Sometimes you have to say goodbye to some (old) ways of doing things so you can free yourself to get to the next level of your work.
Max Martin Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
Podcast Recommendation
Max Martin's career is a good example of the importance to switch between phases of exploration and exploitation every once in a while. Also the New York Times bestselling author and New York University professor Adam Alter has emphasized the importance of these two mindsets in his book "Anatomy of a Breakthrough".
Check out the Sparkr Podcast episode with Adam about how you can create breakthroughs, transform and grow in your personal or professional life.
Max Martin Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
Keep quiet
As you can tell from the many hits they created together, Max is a long-time collaborator of the great singer Pink. As Max remembers, she had a tendency to overdo the singing, trying to prove everyone how great she can make use of these vocal cords.
Max, however, loves it the most when a great singer is doing something simple. Because according to the songwriter, composer and producer you can tell that somebody is great at what they do even if you don’t show it off every time and are doing the simple things outstandingly well.
In his role as collaborator, Max sometimes has to convince musicians that they don’t need to prove anything. The challenge is to make them feel safe and secure to focus on writing good songs.
Here I see a nice parallel to another mantra that I find important in innovation:
Lesson 8: Great innovation (or creative beauty) doesn’t have to be loud. There’s quality in quiet innovation and creativity.
Kissing Girls Is Great
Next to Pink, a new rising female star started to show up in Max’s studio more and more. This collaboration would lead to multiple hit songs over the years and an American Dream type of story. She got famous world-wide with her single “I Kissed a Girl”. Enter the scene: Katy Perry. Max started working with her before she had a record deal.
To Max’s surprise as a Swedish guy, the song and its lyrics were considered provocative in America. When the song was released, especially in the States, there were reporters on the streets asking parents if they would let their kids listen to this song. That’s when Max realized that it would become a chart storming hit. “The controversy was brilliant”, Max says with a happy grin on his face.
Lesson 9: Don’t shy away from controversy as not everyone should love your product. Paradoxically, not being for everyone will most likely boost your success.
Let’s Play
Nowadays, Katy Perry has around 10 number one hits in the United States of which almost every single one was created in collaboration with Max.
However, it was not obvious at all in the beginning that the woman now known as the artist Katy Perry would be successful. When Max started working with her, she had a couple of flops in her repertoire and troubles getting a deal in the industry.
She came auditioning in the garage of Max’s house in Los Angeles. She performed well and the composer had a good gut feeling about it. That’s why they started collaborating. With artists in their early stages like Katy Perry at that point you never know how it will turn out. Max admits that he also has a lot of collaborations in his portfolio that did not turn into hits. You just can’t know in advance. You must take risks, try and play around.
I’m sure this rings a bell with all you dear readers who made it this far into this essay.
Lesson 10: You can’t know for sure in advance if an innovation or creative idea will work. You must take risks and you’ll find out by doing. That’s why it’s advised to create circumstances in which experimenting is encouraged, fast and cheap.
Never Ever Ever
The journey continued for Max with the next upcoming female artist you might have heard of: Taylor Swift. This was back in 2011 when Taylor was very young and not yet the ultra mega star she now is. At that point she had released three country albums and she wanted to try a new musical direction. Who you gonna call? The chart buster!
One of Taylor’s first global hits happened because of an awkward accident. Here’s the story: The first time Taylor and Max collaborated in the studio, a random guy appeared in the studio asking if it’s true that Taylor is here in a session. Max was reluctant to confirm but the guy insisted that he knows her well and that it’s all fine. Max brings the guy to Taylor and it turns out that they did not know each other at all. The guy was there to bring a message from an ex-boyfriend of hers. Obviously, Max was sweating blood as this was the first time Taylor and him collaborated. Luckily, Taylor reacted very well and simply concluded, that she’ll never ever get back together with this guy again. Like “Never ever ever”. Max was joking that this would be a great song title. The next day, Taylor showed up with a demo and the rest is history.
Lesson 11: Accidents happen. Make the best of them because they can lead to great outcomes.
Take a Breath. Simplify.
Next to the Swedish hit maker, also music royalty Paul McCartney was awarded the Polar Prize in Sweden for his incredible contributions to the world with The Beatles. As the prolific musician that he is, Paul bought an Ukulele in his later career because this tiny guitar limited his options to write songs. Paul was convinced that sometimes, restrictions are a source of inspiration and breakthroughs.
Max sees it the same way. He likes to keep it simple. The challenge, however, is to write something simple yet interesting. That’s surprisingly hard to do. When receiving the important Polar Prize in 2016, he emphasized that “it’s the most difficult to make something simple.”
Lesson 12: Restricting and reducing can help you innovating and creating. Strive for simple and interesting.
Max Martin Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
Max Martin Creatives Innovators Innovation Creativity
Let’s Round up
Congrats, you made it till the end of this essay. To conclude, let’s recap the 12 lessons from the most successful musician:
- When inspiration strikes you have to be ready and willing to take notes, do a demo or prototype of the idea immediately so you can work on it later. The mind is great at having ideas, not keeping them.
- No matter if it’s music, any type of product or a brand. Any creative or innovator should strive for making the project unique and recognizable. This improves your chances for success dramatically.
- Sometimes you don’t know what you have. You must show your ideas to others and see what resonates. It’s okay to be ashamed of your ideas. Vulnerability and exposure open the door to your best creative work and reflected innovation.
- Empathy is key. It doesn’t hurt to speak the language of the people you work with to get the best out of them, to understand their needs and produce great stuff together as a creative collective or for them as your clients.
- Learn from the best and collaborate. Turn down your ego and let other talents enrich your work.
- Train and fill your toolbox with various creativity or innovation methods that help you to get unstuck and finish the work. However, there should be an inspiring idea or valuable purpose at the beginning of the process to guide your usage of the tools.
- Be courageous enough to leave what made you successful in the past when the time has come. Sometimes you have to say goodbye to some (old) ways of doing things so you can free yourself to get to the next level of your work.
- Great innovation (or creative beauty) doesn’t have to be loud. There’s quality in quiet innovation and creativity.
- Don’t shy away from controversy as not everyone should love your product. Paradoxically, not being for everyone will most likely boost your success.
- You can’t know for sure in advance if an innovation or creative idea will work. You must take risks and you’ll find out by doing. That’s why it’s advised to create circumstances in which experimenting is encouraged, fast and cheap.
- Accidents happen. Make the best of them because they can lead to great outcomes.
- Restricting and reducing can help you innovating and creating. Strive for simple and interesting.
I hope these insights will prove valuable for your creative or innovative work. And also, I hope that this compilation of thoughts heightens your appreciation for the seemingly simple yet masterfully created hit songs you year in the charts. Art comes in all shapes and forms. And there’s also the art of creating hits that enchant millions of people on the entire planet.
Kostenloser PDF Download
Dieses Essay mit den 12 Prinzipien für Innovative und Kreative ist auch als kostenloser PDF Download auf Deutsch verfügbar. Hier gehts zum Download.
Podcast Recommendation
If you want to learn more from another creative professional, you can check out the Sparkr Podcast episode with Horacio "Chacho" Puebla. In the podcast we talk about how you can build creative teams, maintain creative performance and hire great talent.
About the Author
Christian Lundsgaard-Hansen is the owner of Sparkr, an agency for change makers. The Swiss national works as an independent, strategic sparring partner and coach for decision-makers in the areas of strategy, innovation and branding. Christian Lundsgaard-Hansen is also active as a moderator and podcaster.
In the Sparkr Podcast, he talks to leading minds on topics such as leadership, technology and innovation. These include for example ex Chief Scientist at NASA Thomas Zurbuchen, employee number eight at Google and SVP of Engineering Urs Hölzle, adventurer Bertrand Piccard and many more.
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