Swedish songwriters punch above their weight in the pop world. Could Australia emulate that success? – ABC News

For a country of 10 million people, Sweden exerts an outsize influence on popular music.

You might think first of ABBA, but that’s just the starting point.

There’s Listen To Your Heart by Roxette. The Final Countdown by Europe. The Sign by Ace of Base. Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex. Lovefool by The Cardigans.

As well as those hits, there are artists like Avicii, The Hives, Robyn and Jose Gonzalez — all of them having found worldwide success.

But Sweden’s reputation has evolved from a small nation producing star performers to one moulding the pop world from behind the scenes.

That is, it has become very good at producing songwriters-for-hire.

That’s according to Ola Johansson, an economic geographer at the University of Pittsburgh whose research has looked at Sweden’s musical exports.

So, how did a small country like Sweden become so hot in the music world — and what can Australia learn from it?

How the ‘Swedish miracle’ came about

The obvious place to start is Max Martin.

The Swedish producer is the one of the world’s most successful songwriters — the third-most successful in history if you go by US number ones. The first two are Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

Some of Martin’s writing credits: Baby, One More Time (Britney Spears), I Want It That Way (Backstreet Boys), Shake It Off (Taylor Swift). That’s just three of his 23 chart-toppers.

But it’s worth examining what social and economic factors contributed to Martin’s success.

Mr Johansson says Sweden saw an “industrial cluster” for songwriting emerge in Stockholm in the 1990s — something not dissimilar to Silicon Valley for technology or Detroit for cars.

In a 2010 paper, he noted “high levels of innovation and competitiveness” among about 4,000-5,000 small music companies — half of them in downtown Stockholm.

Karl Johan Schuster, aka Shellback, is a songwriter who came up under Martin through this Stockholm hub, which was based initially around the studio Cheiron and later included Martin’s studio Maratone and others.

Shellback now has co-writing credits on dozens of songs for major artists, including much of Taylor Swift’s albums 1989 and Reputation.

Sophia Somajo is another songwriter from this cluster. She has written for Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Adam Lambert. (Remember, major pop songs are often written by small teams of people.)

The factors that have given Sweden its edge

Thanks in part to its army of pop songwriters and producers, Sweden is the most successful exporter of music as a proportion of GDP in the world, and one of only three countries — alongside the US and UK — to be a net exporter of music.

How it got there is the result of many interconnected factors, according to Mr Johansson, who has just published a book called Songs From Sweden: Shaping Pop Culture In A Globalized Music Industry.

They include:

• A publicly funded system of after-school music education, attended by about 30 per cent of Swedish kids
• A technologically literate population with a history of engineering expertise — important given so much pop music production happens on computers
• Widely available high-speed internet
• The second-strongest proficiency in English of any European country
• A smaller economy that must naturally look outwards

But, Mr Johansson says, “what’s very important here is also initial success leads to a positive reputation, and particularly in something like popular culture”.

“Then you need to capitalise on that.”

There’s a push for Australia to do just that

Last week, musician Jenny Morris, the chair of the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), argued Australia should now think about joining Sweden as a net exporter for music, heralding the Scandinavian country as a place where “they celebrate music like we celebrate swimming”.

She cited the success of an artist like Tones And I, whose 2019 hit Dance Monkey went number one around the world, as evidence Australia had the talent to do so.

Meanwhile, a report last year from the Australia Council for the Arts found royalties earned overseas by Australian artists doubled between 2013 and 2018.

But Morris said Australia was failing to live up to its potential.

She cited a lack of emphasis in schools on creativity through music, “absurd planning decisions” affecting live music venues in cities, and inadequate measures to boost local content on commercial radio and streaming services.

Morris said Australian musicians had the potential to snag as much as 5 per cent of an international market for music, projected — in a 2017 Goldman Sachs report — to be worth $US140 billion by 2030.

Dom Alessio, digital export producer for Sounds Australia, which helps Australian artists showcase and build networks overseas, said Australia already had the talent in place to be a net exporter of music, referencing songwriters like Sarah Aarons.

“What needs to happen for us to get there is going to be investment from multiple portfolios, from all levels of government, from federal down to local,” he said.

“[You] need investment in venues, in the rehearsal studios, in recording studios — places for people that make music,” he said.

From there, support can be extended to larger venues in each state, and then to exports at the federal level, where music should be viewed across multiple portfolios, not just arts but trade and foreign affairs, he said.

He also pointed to a more widespread acknowledgement that “being a songwriter is actually a viable, profitable career — it’s not just something you do on the side”.

The dollar figures aren’t high … but the cultural value could be

Australian music exports generate $195 million a year, according to the Australia Council report.

By comparison, our biggest export, iron ore, generates about $60 billion a year.

But while Hollywood is only a small part of the US economy, it’s value as an exportable brand — taking American culture to the world — is hard to overstate.

South Korea has likewise noticed the major cultural and diplomatic value of music, pouring money and resources into K-Pop. The cultural value of Swedish pop music likely exceeds its economic one.

“If people are hearing Australian music, you are not just exporting the creations, you are also exporting Australian values and ideas,” Mr Alessio said.

Australia has been trying to push Australian music internationally.

Funding increased last year for Sounds Australia, while APRA has held workshops for Australian songwriters in many parts of the world, including, recently, Seoul.

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“This won’t happen overnight and it could well take a decade,” Morris said of the export goal.

“But you need a clear vision in order to start change now.”

Financial support from government, good networking and being able to spend time in overseas markets have been key to the Swedes’ success, Mr Johansson notes, and the research shows the same will be true for Australians.

“None of this is revolutionary,” Mr Alessio said.

“We are not inventing a new theory of economics. It’s writing songs. We do that already, and we do that damn well. And we can keep doing it and encourage the next generation.”