Remember When: The Beatles Producer George Martin Was Pushed from the Record Books ...

Most Beatles fans will recognize the name George Martin as the band’s prolific and hit-making producer, but on January 27, 2024, a different producer broke the honorary Beatle’s record of most chart-topping hits in an entirely different world of pop music than the one Martin and the Fab Four dominated in the late 1960s. Interestingly, the two producers even share a surname.

While there’s no familial relation, the producers’ long-lasting legacy in the pop music world certainly connects them in a significant way.

George Martin earned his title as the “fifth Beatle” through his extensive work with the Fab Four throughout their short-lived career as one of the biggest bands in the world. A producer, musician, and arranger, Martin steered John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in the right direction when they were feeling wayward. (Or grumbled at the board when they insisted on doing things their way, like when they recorded a song Martin “flat out didn’t like” for the Beatles’ 1967 Magical Mystery Tour.

The Beatles had already parted ways by the time future pop producer Karl Martin Sandberg was born. He adopted the professional name Max Martin by the early 1990s, likely unaware of the connection he would come to have with the Beatles’ Martin. Max began his fast ascent as one of the greatest pop producers of all time when Zomba, a branch of BMG at the time, hired Swedish recording studio Cheiron Studios to work with the Backstreet Boys on their eponymous debut. Max worked with the boy band on hits like “As Long As You Love Me” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”

Max’s producing career continued to take off from there as he collected other A-list clients like Celine Dion and Britney Spears. The latter artist ended up recording “…Baby One More Time” as her debut single after the Backstreet Boys and TLC both turned down the song, which Max wrote and co-produced. Max worked with Spears on her next two records, Oops!… I Did It Again and Britney. They briefly parted ways as Spears tried to find her footing outside of teen pop before reuniting for her 2008 album, Circus, The Singles Collection from 2009, and Femme Fatale in 2011.

Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis

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