Like Max Martin, Karl Johan Schuster had heavy metal roots\u2014the producer who would be known as Shellback was first a vocalist for a melodic black metal band called Blinded Colony. Schuster signed to Max Martin\u2019s production company, Maratone, at the age of 22, and he got right to work making hits. \u201dSo What\u201d is a songwriting collaboration with Martin that demonstrates the younger producer\u2019s ability to meet the moment of the late \u201800s. The sound is \u201crock,\u201d the chorus is massive, but tucked into the mix is a zippy hint of the electronic moment to come, and most importantly, there\u2019s more than a hint of parasociality in the lyrics. Pink, just a couple of years away from going full Cirque du Soleil with her whole thing, was unafraid to channel her brash personality into a song about her (at the time) estranged husband Cary Hart\u2014\u201cI guess I just lost my husband, I don\u2019t know where he went\u201d\u2014and was rewarded for her boldness with a #1 hit, her biggest-selling single ever. \u201cSo What\u201d places Max Martin and Shellback at the forefront of Pop Songs We Know Are About Real People, essentially removing the generic \u201cU\u201d in \u201cSince U Been Gone\u201d forever.<\/p>\n
Usher feat. Pitbull, \u201cDJ Got Us Falling in Love\u201d (2010)<\/strong><\/p>\n Another Martin\/Shellback collab, this one features both producers on songwriting duty (along with another Martin associate, Savan Kotecha) and heralds the new decade\u2019s full shift into Eurodance. By the time the 2010s rolled around, it was all about 4-on-the-floor rhythms, big-room synths, and lyrics about enjoying yourself to the fullest at the discoth\u00e9que. This was a striking transition from the hip-hop and R&B-dominated 2000s; a handful of years prior, the Swedes were trying to make their clients sound more like Usher, but now Usher wanted to sound Swedish. A reject from Rihanna\u2019s slush pile, \u201cDJ Got Us Fallin\u2019 In Love\u201d is a little more generic than prior Cheiron Studio hits, but there\u2019s an unmistakable Scandinavian melancholy in song\u2019s minor key, as well as the wistful way Usher coos about the romantic influence of his local disc jockey.<\/p>\n Maroon 5, \u201cMoves Like Jagger\u201d (2011)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like Max Martin, Karl Johan Schuster had heavy metal roots\u2014the producer who would be known as Shellback was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[1067,18,117,19,17,337,973,1715,806],"class_list":{"0":"post-1404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-culture","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-taylor-swift","15":"tag-textbelowcenterfullbleed","16":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}