Music for Export: Abba, Max Martin, Spotify and the Swemix of American Pop

Sweden has constantly reshaped the world’s pop music. Abba created a glam Top 40 of plasticity and durability. Writer-producer Max Martin centered a guild of songsmiths making hits with artists from Britney Spears to the Weeknd. And Spotify turned the pirate platform of MP3 downloading into a streaming service for hundreds of millions. This lecture will explore how a “Swemix,” unabashedly commercial, shifted pop from Americanization and British Invasion to globalization.

Eric Weisbard is Professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama and the 2023/24 Fulbright Chair of American Studies at Uppsala University. He has edited the Village Voice music section, Spin Alternative Record Guide, and Journal of Popular Music Studies. He founded and long organized the Pop Conference. His books include Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Songbooks: The Literature of American Popular Music (Duke University Press, 2021), and Hound Dog (Duke University Press, 2023). He is currently editing The Oxford Handbook of Pop Music.