What do Rihanna, Ne-Yo, Beyonce, and UK boyband Blue have in common? Well, they all got monster hits. But of course, behind those monster hits are the creative minds and among them are the producers. Ever heard of Max Martin? Well, if you are a huge 90s pop music fanatic who went gaga over songs like Get Down, Baby One More Time, and Bye Bye Bye to name few, then you should have heard the songs of Max Martin. He is the creative brain and hands, in short he is the producer who helped the earlier successes of Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC. Max Martin had even collaborated with Pink.

Max Martin doesn’t have anything to do with Rihanna, Ne-Yo, and Beyonce today. But all three have their own Max Martin version and theirs is called the Stargate Duo. These production team is composed of two guys from Norway. Stargate was responsible for the backing tracks behind the successful Irreplaceable (which also influenced a later hit song for Chris Brown titled With You). Stargate was also responsible for the backing tracks of Ne-Yo’s So Sick. And the latest is Rihanna’s Take A Bow.

Don’t you notice all of these tracks have the same sound design elements. All of the three songs have that noticeable clapping beat on the backing tracks, right? Well, of course they sound the same since they all come from the same producer.

But my point is, the same thing that happened during the Max Martin is starting to come out again. We are being served with the same stuff over and over again. I mean like yeah, we love Ne Yo, we love Rihanna, and we LOVE Beyonce way too much, but we need to be creative here. I know the Stargate Duo are making money out of their stuff. But I hope they don’t give us too much of a cookie cutter music.

One of Stargate’s latest projects is the song for Shontelle – it’s called T-Shirt. I remember one time, I made a post about Shontelle’s T-Shirt song, and a comment poster said the song sounded like a crossover between Chris Brown’s With You and Jordin Spark’s “Tattoo…”. Check out the post here.

Well, that’s what we call commercialism. When something is selling hot, the tendency is, people will likely to serve you the same stuff over and over again, until we consumers get lost in boredom and oblivion.

I didn’t know though that Stargate was also behind the songs for the Brit boyband Blue. You know, the songs like All Rise, If You Come Back To Me, and stuffs. Huh! And Stargate also did the backing tracks for a not-so-popular but one of my fave boybands in the 90s – 5IVE. Remember them?  5IVE – five bad boys with the power to rock, blowing your mind, so we gotta get into, five, what you waiting 4, if  you want it, 3, 2, 1, let’s hit it. Huh, those were the days.

Anyway, please share your thoughts on this, just post up your comment. Thanchu!

Oh, just a minute, check out this video on Billboard about this Stargate thing!