Max Martin & Shellback

The award-winning producers behind Taylor Swift's new album exemplify the Swedish 'music miracle', writes Barbara Ellen

- Barbara Ellen

Taylor Swift moves fast. In the latter stages of her multibillion-dollar Eras tour, on days off she travelled secretly to Stockholm to see Swedish music producers Max Martin and Shellback. The result is The Life of a Showgirl, her 12th studio album, released on 3 October.

While Swift worked with Martin and Shellback before, on the albums, Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017), unusually, they are the sole producers of Showgirl. The Stockholm sessions, Swift said, "felt like catching lightning in a bottle". Not for the first time, the focus is now on the phenomenally successful but reclusive producers.

To say that Martin (real name: Karl Martin Sandberg), and Shellback (Karl Johan Schuster) have dominated the global music industry for the past three decades would be an understatement. Working together or separately, they have become the go-to producers for the international pop elite, generating hits for Ariana Grande, Pink, Harry Styles, Katy Perry, the Weeknd, and more.

Martin, 54, a five-time Grammy winner, worth an estimated $400m (£298m), helped launch the career of Britney Spears with Baby One More Time in 1998. He is on course to break the record for most Billboard Hot 100 No 1s held by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. He and onetime apprentice, Shellback, 40, were previously credited with helping Swift mastermind her switch from country to pop, with smashes such as We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Blank Space, Shake it Off and Bad Blood.