ABSTRACT
Over the past two centuries, American vernacular music has been a significant influence on music cultures across the globe, owing in no small part to its unique blending of different cultural influences into a number of distinct and accessible styles. In the last 30 years, however, commercially successful US popular music in particular has become markedly homogenised and simplified in terms of both style and form. This is in part due to the creative influence of Scandinavian music producers and songwriters including Max Martin, who introduced streamlined songwriting processes and formulaic writing techniques to an already quite formulaic genre. Emerging from an increasingly digitalised and globalised industry, the result is a notably transnational and cross-cultural creation both in terms of its production, style and distribution – and as such marks a trend that in effect upends the (perceived) Americanisation of other music cultures in the past and present.
