MBW’s World’s Greatest Songwriters series celebrates the composers behind the globe’s biggest hits. This time out, Andreas Carlsson, the Swedish writer behind a glittering collection of pop mega-hits, talks about getting his break with Max Martin, writing for Britney and the Backstreet Boys, and why he’s championing music co-creation app, Hyph. World’s Greatest Songwriters is supported by AMRA – the global digital music collection society which strives to maximize value for songwriters and publishers in the digital age.
Andreas Carlsson is a man on a mission.
Nothing new about that – after all, as the man behind some of the biggest hits in the history of pop music, he has always been exceptionally driven.
His writing skills have been behind countless global smashes and over three billion streams worldwide for the likes of the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Carrie Underwood and countless others. He has starred on the Swedish versions of The X Factor and Idol franchises. He’s written hit musicals and founded tech start-ups.
Now, however, he’s pouring his energies into something new: music co-creation app Hyph. He is Hyph’s CEO, and borderline evangelical about its potential.
“As a songwriter, I did really well,” he enthuses. “But it only took a piece of plastic to change the whole scene: the MP3 stick. It was time for something new: the internet, mobile phones and everything that came with it. Now, trends have shifted again.”
Yes, 27 years after he co-wrote I Want It That Way for the Backstreet Boys, Andreas Carlsson wants it a different way.
Hyph gives users access to millions of professionally recorded, human-made stems – no generative AI is involved – which combine with a cloud-based creation engine to “generate original, copyright-protected songs in real time”. The first iteration of the app is now on trial in the Nordics, the UK, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, with further products in development.
Carlsson hopes it will gamify music and make it more inclusive, collaborative and sociable in the same way the iPhone has revolutionized photography – and claims it could increase music’s “addressable market” from hundreds of millions of people to four billion, plus raise its revenues six-fold.
“Change is coming, And I want to make sure it takes care of the little guy on the street with a big dream.”
“Change is coming,” he declares. “And I want to make sure it takes care of the little guy on the street with a big dream, the way I was 30 years ago when I was dreaming about being in the music industry and relying on record companies. It’s a different time and I’d like to add something great to the new era.”
To further those ends, Hyph has recently taken on former BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch as chairman, with Carlsson declaring: “Hartwig is one of the most accomplished global music executives of the past two decades. We are delighted that he is joining us in our mission to create the first genuine leap forward for music since the advent of subscription streaming.”
That sounds ambitious, to say the least, but then they probably said the same when Carlsson emerged from a “financially tough” upbringing in Stockholm, Sweden and took a starring role in Denniz Pop and Max Martin’s Cheiron Studios hit factory (“I had no grand plan, I just had a screw loose – and sometimes that helps!” he laughs).
A rock and metal fan in his youth, he started as an artist, getting his big break – somewhat ironically – when he was a last-minute replacement for Peter Andre as support on the Backstreet Boys’ European tour (he’d never heard of BSB and initially assumed they were German). Backstage, he met Pop, who put him and Martin in neighboring apartments and paired them up as co-writers – “an invitation to Willy Wonka’s factory”, as far as Carlsson was concerned.
Carlsson certainly came up with his own golden ticket, with the likes of I Want It That Way, NSYNC’s Bye Bye Bye (which recently enjoyed a huge revival after its inclusion in Deadpool & Wolverine), Britney Spears’ Born To Make You Happy, Katy Perry’s Waking Up In Vegas and countless others that are still staples of radio/streaming playlists decades later. He’s nominated for this year’s Songwriters Hall Of Fame induction and also played a key role in Simon Cowell’s music empire, writing huge songs for the likes of Five and Westlife.
Today, he may joke that his songwriting days are over (“At knifepoint, I can probably still come up with a hit – but there are people who can do a better job!”), although his recent K-pop credits would suggest otherwise, and he’s currently working on his second musical (after Cirque du Soleil’s Paramour), which is being developed as an animated film project.
But, as he sits down with MBW back in Sweden, he still has plenty of wisdom to impart about the fine art of songwriting, AI and why gibberish lyrics are fine – as long as it’s good gibberish…
HOW DOES RUNNING A TECH COMPANY COMPARE TO SONGWRITING?
[Laughs] Oh my God, my life used to be a dream!
It was time. I’m not a suit-and-tie kind of guy, but I started hanging out more with the business side of things and I built up other companies. I was always an entrepreneur that had a musical string on my instrument. So this role fits me very well.
You also have a deadline when it comes to music creation; when you lose the touch, it’s better to use all that experience to nurture the next generation of people who want to be in the industry and make sure they get the right tools – on a business level, a legal level and a creational level.
DO YOU THINK GREAT MUSIC WILL COME OUT OF PEOPLE USING HYPH?
Yes. I’m all about color, chords and music that speaks from the heart. Once you use technology to make great music and have a narrative, you really have a good chance of making a dent in the universe.
An AI Beatles would probably never have taken off, because you need the different characters and the story – that’s why they’re icons in the world. It’s not so much how they spent time in the studio, it’s the narrative that you add to it – and I want to use technology, but tell the story.
SO, COULD IT PRODUCE THE NEXT BRITNEY?
Absolutely. If – sorry, when – we’re successful and able to give young dreamers the right tools, it’s just a matter of time until you’re able to pair that up with a great narrative.
That’s what I’ve seen on Idol; you can go from zero to hero extremely fast, if the heart is there and people can relate to it.
WON’T IT JUST MEAN MORE COMPETITION FOR PRO SONGWRITERS THOUGH?
What we’re doing is more of a game. We’re gamifying music so the masses can have fun with it. But, ironically, the masters will come up in value. Everything is shifting – I don’t think it has to work against each other, the industry will be bigger because of it.
When you look at TikTok, 38% of the music is already manipulated by the user. So, playing with music could almost be as big as being a passive listener.
WHY IS SWEDEN SO GOOD AT POP MUSIC?
Our folk music has always been very melodic. And we lived in a good spot. The French regulated radio so it was all about French music, but in Sweden we were super-curious about what was going on in the British chart and the US, so we were in a melting pot of a lot of things. And then we had great technology early on – it’s always been a tech-savvy place.
“when we got to the States, we would see six guys doing what one Swede was doing.”
Plus, there’s a Swedish saying called ‘Följa John’, [which roughly translates as ‘follow the leader’] – in the ‘70s, everyone thought they could be a tennis player after Björn Borg.
So, we became music producers and then, all of a sudden, you have an army of Swedish music producers. And here, you couldn’t just be the producer and rely on the teaboy, the second engineer and the runner – you actually had to do everything, so we became good at doing it all. And when we got to the States, we would see six guys doing what one Swede was doing.
Oh, and the bad weather makes everyone want to work at all times!
WHEN YOU JOINED CHEIRON, WHAT WERE YOUR EXPECTATIONS?
Well, it was already kind of legendary within a Swedish framework. Some of the producers were driving Lamborghinis and stuff, things you’d never seen in Sweden before.
But I was not aware that I was boarding the train just when things were going to go. You almost felt the G-force of this thing. Two years after I joined, we had the three biggest acts in the world: Backstreet, NSYNC and Britney. Everyone was flying out to see these seven young guys that were cranking out songs – I had no idea that was going to happen.
DID THAT COME WITH A LOT OF PRESSURE?
It was fun, terrifying and very stressful all at the same time. People turned to us for the hit songs that would drive not just the record, but the tour and the merchandise.
I talked to Phil Collen from Def Leppard at one point and he said what killed Def Leppard was the clones, because everyone wanted to sound like the Hysteria record, with the big drums and the slick production. It became hard for them to write their own songs, because all of the competition sounded exactly the same. And that’s what happened to us.
WHEN YOU WROTE I WANT IT THAT WAY WITH MAX, DID YOU REALIZE IT WOULD BECOME ONE OF THE BIGGEST SONGS OF ALL TIME?
It’s not like I’m tooting my own horn here but, like Quincy [Jones] said, you’ve got to leave space for God to walk into the room when you write something of that magnitude.
We were a couple of young guys wanting to sound like people on the other side of the pond, or in England. We did our versions of what we had heard on the radio, but we weren’t prepared for things like that.
But I felt something special when I heard the finished record because [the Backstreet Boys] had something very unique. I don’t think it would have been such a big hit with just one singer, there was something about how they traded vocals – it’s like a great movie; it gets better and better and better.
AND 30 YEARS LATER, PEOPLE ARE STILL DEBATING WHAT THE ‘IT’ IS AND WHAT THE ‘THAT’ IS…
[Laughs] Yes, the song had no meaning. It’s like, ‘What way, what are we talking about?’ At first, it’s a statement – ‘You are my fire’ – and we thought, ‘Wow, this sound great, it really sits in your mouth’.
Then, we were struggling with the second verse until Max goes, ‘Maybe it’s just a question: am I your fire?’ And, with the chorus in contrast, it totally lost its meaning. It’s just gibberish – but it was good gibberish. We Swedes have a knack for things that don’t mean much, but roll nicely off your tongue.
Sometimes, you’ve got to leave [something out], like Hotel California – that was a song filled with mysteries. When you leave a question mark for the listener and you do it right, there’s a chance it becomes what we’re talking about here: ‘What is it, does it have a meaning?’ No, not really, it’s just fun!
I go out on a Friday night and have a nice steak and a glass of wine, hear that song and see 20-year-olds start to dance and go crazy over it, so it has something for sure!
YOU WORKED WITH KATY PERRY EARLY ON – DID YOU THINK SHE WAS GOING TO BECOME A MEGASTAR?
She probably won’t remember this, but I told Katy, ‘You’re going to be one of the biggest stars in the world’.
Her name was Katy Hudson at the time and she was sitting on my couch, worried about the future. And I said, ‘You’re going to be the biggest pop star in the world, then you’re going to move onto TV and then you’re going to make movies’. So, I was right about two things – and we’ll see about the movies!
You always have a feeling – I was also a judge on talent shows like Idol and The X Factor so, over the years, I’ve become pretty good at seeing that thing which really makes people take off. It’s not always the voice, it’s other things that the person has.
HOW DO YOU LIKE TO WORK WITH ARTISTS AS A SONGWRITER?
I like to interview the artist. ‘What do you want to sing about, what are you going through in your life, what’s that one record you would bring to a deserted island, what’s your main influence?’ And then you start to put this container together.
With Katy, for example, she was into Alanis Morissette and ‘Eff the world, argggghh’ and being upset but, at the same time, I remember she was dressed like a strawberry or something.
She was Katy Perry before Katy Perry. And both me and my collaborator Desmond [Child] said, ‘Shouldn’t you sing about fun stuff? You are a fun person cracking jokes all the time, it’s not that believable that your music’s dull’.
We wrote Waking Up In Vegas, then Max wrote I Kissed A Girl and, all of a sudden, you had a journey. She’s deviated from that, but that’s still the backbone of what she does; she’s fun, kooky.
SHE COULD MAYBE DO WITH A FEW SONGS LIKE THAT AGAIN…
I think that would be good – I’d love a call!
YOU’VE SAID THE BEST SONGS ARE SIMPLE, BUT SURELY IT CAN’T BE THAT EASY?
No. Simplicity is the hardest form of art to achieve. Complexity and being difficult is not so hard.
“To write a very simple and memorable song that doesn’t feel cheesy is very hard.”
Look at Michael Jackson; he was the master of getting beyond perfection and, beyond perfection, everything seems to be very simple, fun and joyful. But there were tens of thousands of hours that went in to making that thing look easy and fun – and it’s the same with songwriting. To write a very simple and memorable song that doesn’t feel cheesy is very hard. There is a huge portion of luck in it.
YOU OBVIOUSLY ENJOY COLLABORATION, BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE TREND FOR MULTIPLE CO-WRITERS?
Funnily enough, the Mona Lisa was painted by one guy!
Too many chefs will not make a great soup. Back in the day, you would have people who could write lyrics, play the chords and do basically everything. Today, you have topliners and beatmakers and stuff.
Then the record companies, as their budgets get tighter, try and squeeze another person on a track that’s already done. Or they just chop things up and, all of a sudden, a song comes out with 20 writers. A lot of writers will feel the pressure to OK that. ‘I just added five more people on yesterday – what do you think?’ ‘Er, I think it was perfect when I wrote it!’
You have to accept that as a writer today to stay in the business, but it’s very unfair because it means that, whatever comes in from that song, has to be divided into very small pieces of royalties.
Luckily, my time was before that. Although I’ve written some songs lately for Korean labels and ended up with, like, four per cent [of the song]. Great, I guess I’m not paying for lunch!
DO YOU MAKE ENOUGH MONEY FROM STREAMING?
Unfortunately, I sold some of my songs [to Round Hill Music in 2011]. It’s not something I recommend to anyone: revenues are bigger because all these songs are getting a second life. And they never get old, they’re always relevant in some way. Old music is actually bigger than new music now.
I had to do it for personal reasons, but I should have held onto some of those songs, for sure. But it is what it is; you do things in life and then you write new songs!
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT AI?
AI could cut costs and make things easier, because it’s all about how you spend your time in the studio.
But once you start to scrape existing catalogs… If you take the four or five million songs that have been the foundation of some of these AI companies, people have invested their lifetime in these songs, musicians have invested their performance, producers and record companies have invested their marketing budgets. So, to just take those songs and build a model that can spit out billions of songs based on an infringement – in my book, that’s wrong in many ways.
Unless that’s regulated, you’ll lose the human voice in music – and that’s what it’s all about. It can be supported by great tech, but if tech becomes the voice, you [might as well] have technology listen to it as well.
It’s important that we hold on to music, because it’s a great joy for us. What would the world be without a song?
COULD AI EVER COME UP WITH A SONG AS GOOD AS I WANT IT THAT WAY?
No, but maybe it could figure out what the ‘it’ and the ‘that’ is!
