Where would the music industry be without lil Sweden?

Since it’s Sweden’s birthday today, I thought I would write a little tribute-entry to Sweden for its many and great contributions to the music industry! As many of you probably already know, Sweden houses quite an impressive list of songwriters and producers throughout the years who are responsible for many of the world’s biggest pop hits, like Britney Spear’s “Toxic”, N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye” and The Backstreet Boys’ “Larger Than Life”. There are also a few Swedish artists you may have heard about *cough*Abba*cough* that have had international success as well.

But the success does not only lie in the history books. I was curious to see how many songs on today’s Billboard top 50 were written, produced or performed by at least one Swede – so I decided today to do a random test and figure out the percentage of songs written/produced by a Swede for the week of May 31st. Can you guess? It is a whopping

10%!

(And more than half of the songs are Lady Gaga’s…) For being a random week of the year, that’s quite a high percentage considering that the population of Sweden is only 9 million, compared to the US population of 300 million. I wonder what the percentage was in a random week of the late 90′s, when Backstreet Boys, N’Sync and Britney Spears dominated the charts…? =)

The following songs are from this week’s chart:

2. “California Gurls” – Katy Perry
Produced and co-written by Katy, Dr. Luke, Max Martin and Benny Blanco.

6. “Alejandro” – Lady Gaga
Co-written and produced by RedOne, written by Stefani Germanotta, Nadir Khayat

20. “Poker Face” – Glee Cast (orig Lady Gaga)
Writer(s): RedOne, Stefani Germanotta, Nadir Khayat

30. “Bad Romance” – Lady Gaga
Writer(s): Stefani Germanotta, Nadir Khayat
Producer: RedOne

35. “Whataya Want From Me” – Adam Lambert
Writer(s): Max Martin, Shellback, Pink
Producer: Max Martin, Shellback

So what is so special about Sweden, why do so many artists abroad come to our country for the big hits? I honestly have no idea. Considering we are a social democratic country where standing out in the crowd is frowned upon, it amazes me that we have as many innovative and creative musicians as we do. I read somewhere in an extremely pessimistic article that it is cheaper for US labels to hire Swedish writers to write for their super stars than it would be to do it domestically. I’m not sure I understand that concept since a producer’s salary is based on royalties (percentage of sales)… Does that mean that we are bad negotiators? :p

Anyone have any theories on this? Please comment, I may just write a new entry about it!

Below is a list of artists, producers and songwriters from Sweden and what they’ve done. Some might surprise you!

Producers & Songwriters

Red One (Nadir Khayat) - Lady Gaga, Michael Jacksson, New Kids On The Block, Akon
Bloodshy & Avant - Britney Spears, Madonna, Jordin Sparks, Maroon 5
Max Martin – The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Bon Jovi, N’Sync, Pink
Dennis Pop - Ace of Base, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears
Andreas Karlsson - N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi, Britney Spears, NSync, Westlife, Paul Stanley, Celine Dion
Anders Bagge – Madonna, Janet Jackson, Santana, J. Lo, Celine Dion, Jessica Simpson, Enrique Iglesias
Rami Yacoub – Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, E-Type, Westlife
Laila Bagge - 98 Degrees, Celine Dion, Maya, 702
Quiz & Larossi - Kelly Clarksson, Diana Ross, The Pussycat Dolls, The Saturdays

Wikipedia even has a page called “Swedish record producers” where you can see an expanded list of producers, because I have probably forgotten quite a few.

Artists

Abba
Ace of Base
Agnes
Alcazar
Sahara Hotnights
Robyn
A-Teens
José Gonzáles
Millencolin
The International Noise Conspiracy
Peter, Bjorn and John
The Knife
The Sounds
The Hives
Mando Diao
The Cardigans
Roxette
Eagle Eye Cherry
Lykke Li
Adam Tensta
The Swedish House Mafia (Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, Steve Angello)

A more complete list can be found on Wikipedia’s article “Music From Sweden”

Music-related companies/websites

Spotify
Soundcloud
Bambuser
IKEA (Because you need a desk to sit at when producing)
The Pirate Bay & Kazaa (not saying that’s a good thing… )
Flattr
Twingly

If you have any names to add to any of these lists, please let me know and I’ll add them!