Max Martin in Australia As '& Juliet' Has Triumphant Debut

Max Martin is the biggest hitmaker of this century, so why shouldn’t he have a musical based on the songs he’s written and produced? 

The Swedish musical enigma has produced and written so many of your favourite pop songs, from Britney’s …Baby One More Time, I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC’s It’s Gonne Be Me, Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl, The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights, collaborations with Taylor Swift and Coldplay and many more. 

Double J's Zan Rowe met him in an exclusive media launch of the musical & Juliet, proving that the man behind the music is not only real but visiting Australia.

What an honour and a pleasure to interview Max Martin - the songwriter who has crafted more #1 hits in the past 30 years than anyone else. In Melbourne right now shaping the local production of jukebox musical “& Juliet”. Never does interviews, was a total delight. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Dhvfd3vimn

— Zan Rowe (@zanrowe) March 7, 2023

The stage musical & Juliet is currently in Australia, with the story set to songs written and produced by Martin. About 30 of his songs feature in & Juliet and have wound up being triumphant. 

As a news.com.au review asks, how do the songs fit into the story? Well, “Slight lyrical tweaks help to massage the songs to serve the story, but overall, it’s an unexpected triumph just how well these songs – among them, Teenage Dream, Oops I Did It Again, Love Me Like You Do and I Want It That Way – work in this new context.”

The review concludes, “But really, Max Martin’s bulletproof songs are the star of this show. As the man himself said in a typically brief speech onstage at the end of the opening night performance: ‘Let’s f***ing party.’” & Juliet is currently showing at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne. Find out more about the musical here.

A few months ago, Martin’s partnership with Simon Cowell, Universal Music, Republic Records, and Samsung for the launch of a talent show on TikTok called StemDrop was revealed.

As well as Martin, songwriters Savan Kotecha (One Direction, Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera) and Ali Payami (Taylor Swift, The Weeknd) will release a 60-second version of a brand-new song, "kicking off this new generation of global music collaboration," exclusively on TikTok. 

As soon as the song lands on the app, users will immediately be able to access the "stems" - the individual components of the music like drums, bass guitar, vocal parts, and keyboard - through the StemDrop H5 page "and can create, record & share their unique versions to kick-start their music careers." Yep, people on TikTok will record their own music over a foundation laid by modern pop songwriting legends.

This is when StemDrop becomes a talent show. From here, Universal Music Group will look for the best talents to sign to Republic Records on a social media platform of over a billion monthly users.