Hit-maker Max Martin to receive 2016 Polar Music Prize

Songwriter and producer Max Martin, the hit maker behind Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time, Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl, Pink’s So What and Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood is to receive 2016 Polar Music Prize. 

He and opera singer Cecilia Bartoli were named the Laureates for the 2016 Polar Music Prize, to be presented by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden on June 16. The prize carries a cash award of 1 million Swedish kronor (A$167,000). 

Martin, born Martin Sandberg in Stockholm in 1971, is the most successful pop songwriter of the last 20 years. He has written 21 Number Ones on the Billboard Hot 100, the last one being The Weeknd’s Can’t Feel My Face.

Only Paul McCartney (32) and John Lennon (26) have beaten him in the all-time stakes.

Martin grew up with Kiss posters plastering his bedroom walls. He joined a band It’s Alive, and says “a rock band gave me my identity. To me, working around the clock is fantastic when a song is the centre of everything.” 

Spears, whose …Baby One More Time kicked off Martin’s run of chart toppers in 1999, says, “He’s a perfectionist, which I respect,” says Spears. “I’m scared in case I do something wrong but he’s a lot of fun to work with, a genius.”

Others also benefitting from his golden touch were *NSYNC, Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5, Backstreet Boys, Justin Timberlake, Selena Gomez, Adele, and Adam Levine.

Martin also won the Grammy for producer of the year (non-classical) last year with six nominations for this year’s event. He has produced 19 US chart toppers, second only to Beatles producer George Martin, with 23.

Rome-born mezzo-soprano Bartoli made her stage debut at the age of eight, playing a playing a shepherd boy in Tosca. She has ben an opera singer since 1987, performing in productions around the world. She has also won five Grammys, the last time being in 2011 for Best Classical Vocal Performance for Sacrificium.

The Polar Music Prize was founded in 1989 by Stig "Stikkan" Anderson, the manager and music publisher of ABBA who co-wrote many of their early hits. His family have continued the running of the Prize after his death in 1997.

Previous winners include Elton John, Ray Charles, Ravi Shankar, Ennio Morricone, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Renée Fleming, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Isaac Stern, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Gilberto Gil, Joni Mitchell, B.B. King, Emmylou Harris, Yo-Yo Ma, Patti Smith, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Dizzy Gillespie, Youssou N’Dour and Bruce Springsteen.

Although the prize is of Swedish origin, Martin is only the second Swedish-born Laureate. The first was choral conductor Eric Ericson, who received the prize in 1997.