Aloha !

In light of the other topic I decided to start this one right away. People have asked me before by PM what the story is behind It's My Life and Max Martin, so here it goes. It's a lot of text, I know, but this place has been dead for some time now so hopefully the few people that have stayed will enjoy the read.

There's a huge story behind Crush and finishing the band that no one's ever told, but I'll save it for another time. After showing what Jon and Richie had written for Sex Sells the record company wasn't impressed though. There was no hit among the songs Richie and Jon had written and once again Desmond was called, but it wasn't enough. Their river had run dry (huh huh). How about this guy Max Martin? Their colaboration with Mark Hudson had certainly worked.

Max had written It's My Life long before Jon and Richie knew they were going to be involved in the song. It's not just the chord progressions, it's everything about the song that just screams Max Martin. Listen to the Backstreet Boys' Larger Than Life and you'll find out why. The pumping verses, the way the backing vocals blend in with the lead vocal, the pronunciation of the words It's My Life, it's all Max Martin. Back when the song just had been released Jon was often asked about Max's involvement and they copied the same story time after time. "Oh he just happened to be in the room, he didn't write anything but we have this rule that who's with us in the room has co-written the song". A load of bollocks really, but that's really what Jons answered.

Later, Jon gave in and said Max put the samples in the song, but every professional songwriter who has worked with Andreas Carlsson, Max Martin and the likes knows the song was written by Max himself. Sure, Jon changed some lyrics here and there. "Let's put Tommy and Gina in it", Richie got his talkbox and there was your hit song. The story of IML2003 being the original demo version? Bullshit. The demo is Jon singing along to the backing track filled with samples and some guitar work by Richie.

When the "colaboration" with Max Martin had worked out, Jon suddenly had a lot of interest in working with Andreas Carlsson, Mark Hudson, Marti Fredriksen. I'm not saying he never wrote any of the stuff they supposedly came up with together but it's no secret their input might've been bigger than what Jon would like you to think. Try however to make an album with the songs of the box set that belong to the Sex Sells demo's without One Wild Night or It's My Life. There's no song among them that even remotely sounds like a hit song.

There's been talk about Jon and Richie having ghost writers writing some of their stuff ever since they made it big in the eighties. Back in those days people used to send in their music hoping one of them could sign them up to a record lable. The talk was that both of them listened to it, nicked the great stuff and put in it their own songs. Half of I'll Be There For You was supposed to have been created that way. Michael Jackson has been sued several times for having done the same thing, yet he was known by producers for throwing away every tape he received so he'd never be able to get sued. And to this day everyone who's sued him has lost their case.

There's more examples though where to this day Jon claims to have written the song by himself while the supposedly ghost writers or even the writers themself have come out with the fact that Jon didn't write it, no matter how much he tries to convince you otherwise. I am aware of only 2 others, but I'm quite sure there are more considering the amount of songs there are that have been co-written by someone not part of the band. It's not always Jon who starts the song, it's not always the both of them. Sometimes the co-writer comes up with a song and Jon changes it here and there. There are some Billy Falcon songs that have been written that way.

Ugly
Ugly was written by Eric Bazillian as U.G.L.Y., then finished by Jon. What's remarkable though is that at the time Eric wrote the song he added the story how he wrote it for his wife who was pregnant. When Jon was asked where he got the inspiration for Ugly he said it was, and I kid you not, Dorothea, who was pregnant. Eric hasn't been exactly positive about his experience with Jon and how Jon claims he wrote that stuff and has called Jon a liar once in an interview. Needless to say, unless they made up, the two of them are no longer friends.

All About Lovin' You
Jon did co-write some stuff for Bounce. Hook Me Up was written on a piano as I have been told, but All About Lovin' You was written by Andreas Carlsson for LeAnn Rhimes. LeAnn didn't want it and the record company pushed it down the bands throat. Jon didn't want it either, then changed some words to it with Richie and suddenly the band had written a ballad for the Bounce record. Back when Bounce was in pre-production both Jon and Richie had admitted not having written a single ballad for the album, and none of the released demo's indicate that the band were even remotely thinking of a song sounding like All About Lovin' You. When asked for the inspiration to this song, Jon once again referred to Dorothea and people ate it up.

Now these are the 3 songs of which I am fully convinced neither Jon or Richie had any input in apart from the words here and there. There is some sort of pact among songwriters not to talk about who wrote what unless both writers don't mind, hence those stories not coming out. If you'd rather believe Jon wrote everything he put his name on that's fine. Realize however there's a creative process that goes into songwriting, and it's no secret that anything that sounds remotely different from what the band has done before usually has a co-writer attached to it.

I am fully aware of people wanting to know the source to my story, but I can not reveal this due to it being someone who spoke to a co-writer off the record, or someone else in the business. I'm not sure the source would have a problem with me outing him, so I'd rather stick to letting them be anonymous. Realize however that over time you build up connections. I know I have been praised for my knowledge about the band but the knowledge comes from somewhere. Some have connections to get front row tickets, others hear about the creative processes behind the albums. Over time I've learned that the people behind the scenes are lot more interesting than the ones who seek publicity (Jon's brother anyone?) Considering how I don't give a shit about the front row, you can figure out to what category I belong to.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan