The Popdust Weekend Playlist: British Writer/Producer Steve Mac

If you don’t recognize the name Steve Mac, you probably recognize a good deal of his work. He’s sort of the UK version of American super-producer Max Martin, someone who’s worked with just about every major UK pop star of the last decade-plus and has so subtly shaped what popular music sounds like that you can’t even tell what productions are or aren’t his, because his stuff just sounds like pop music. Most recently, he did The Wanted’s fine new single “I Found You,” but he has a whole back catalogue’s worth of hits just like it.

THE WANTED, “GLAD YOU CAME”

It’s not the first time that Mac’s worked with The Wanted, either. He co-produced and co-wrote the group’s international breakthrough single “Glad You Came,” a synth-heavy (accordion?) club jam that established the group as a more “adult” version of their boy band contemporaries. Tellingly, Mac and the group brought back the accordion sound for “I Found You”—after all, nothing succeeds like success.

JLS, “BEAT AGAIN”

Another one of the more recent spate of boy bands that Mac has worked with is the English X Factor graduate group JLS. They’ve yet to experience the stateside success of some of their UK brethren, but if they never do break through, it won’t be the fault of “Beat Again,” a solid dance-pop breakup lamentation that sounds like the best song that Akon never recorded.

O-TOWN, “ALL OR NOTHING”

Of course, Steve Mac has been in this boy band game for a minute, and in addition to being a key figure with this generation of groups, he had a hand in the last one as well, perhaps most notably with the signature hit from Making the Band’s first-season winners. “All or Nothing” stands as one of the 21st century’s greatest power ballads, every bit worthy of a Bon Jovi or Bryan Adams megahit, with one of the most epic key changes that you’ll ever hear in a pop song. Try it out your next karaoke outing and tell us we’re wrong.

COBRA STARSHIP FEAT. SABI, “YOU MAKE ME FEEL…”

Mac could also handle some Dr. Luke-style American pop music, as evidenced when he somehow saved Cobra Starship from being one-hit wonders with the danceable-but-anonymous “You Make Me Feel…,” which did a very good job of sounding just enough like everything else on the radio in 2011 to let people overlook what a generally unlikeable group Cobra Starship was. It’s a damn catchy song, certainly.

TONI BRAXTON, “PULSE”

Unsurprisingly, some older artists have also turned to the writer/producer for help turning around their dormant careers. Mac gave Toni Braxton a good-faith effort with the show-stopping ballad “Pulse,” the title track off her 2010 album, though the song was never released as single. Given how well the song turned out, and how poorly the album’s two singles (“Hands Tied” and “Make My Heart”) did, maybe it should have been.

For lots more Steve Mac jams, including Kelly Clarkson and One Direction, click NEXT.

The post The Popdust Weekend Playlist: British Writer/Producer Steve Mac appeared first on Popdust.