Diane Warren vs Max Martin?

[degen]

Who has the most impactful catalog and which songwriter has the better hits?

I was looking at all the songs Diane Warren wrote and I’m shocked her credits go back to the 80s on some very known songs, like “Nothings Gonna Stop Us” and “Rhythm of the Night.”

Then in the 90s her signature power ballads became even more dramatic with hits like “Unbreak My Heart” “How Do I Live,” “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and many more. All gigantic powerhouse hits.

We are all familiar with Max Martin’s catalog. Sure he had more #1 hits, but a lot of his music lacks variety. Especially those early 2010 hits he wrote for Kelly, Pink, Katy, Kesha, etc. which all sounded interchangeable to me. Of course there’s the iconic stuff he did for Britney, BsB and Nsync in the late 90s/early 00s. Jump to 2020 and of course there’s the stuff he did for The Weeknd and Ariana, so he is still pumping out hits.

[Private Dancer]

Diane Warren: Unbreak My Heart, Love Will Lead You Back, Have You Ever, If I Could Turn Back Time, I'll Be Your Shelter, For You I Will, If You Asked Me To (Patti) and others.

She writes meaningful songs from the soul and she has classics that transcends generations.

[jenglisbe]

I think Warren is the one who lacks variety. Nearly all of her biggest songs are AC ballads. They're also all mostly overly dramatic 'love' songs.

Max Martin easily for me.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

Max. Diane is a legend, but her music isn't for me. Also, I agree with jenglisbe.

[jenglisbe]

Going way back, Martin had great Robyn hits "Show Me Love" and "Do You Know What it Takes" at the same time he was hitting with early Backstreet Boys jams like "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)." Over 20 years later he was part of the biggest Hot 100 song ever in "Blinding Lights." In between he had iconic hits like "Baby One More Time," "Blank Space," "Dark Horse," "Teenage Dream," "Can't Feel My Face," "Since U Been Gone," and "I Want it That Way." In what world are those songs alike? Not to mention he has hits like "Send My Love," "Side to Side," "One More Night," "Tearin' Up My Heart," and "So What." It's staggering.

I don't think Diane Warren has been a part of nearly as many iconic songs.

[🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲]

Oct 20, 2021 19:26:06 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

Diane Warren: Unbreak My Heart, Love Will Lead You Back, Have You Ever, If I Could Turn Back Time, I'll Be Your Shelter, For You I Will, If You Asked Me To (Patti) and others.

She writes meaningful songs from the soul and she has classics that transcends generations.

All of this. Dianne Warren has written alot of songs that I had grown up with and she has worked with artists of different genres...pop, R&B, soul, and even Latin. Plus, her work is far more relatable and feels more timeless.

Never really cared for Max Martin. Most of his work is generic pop music and overrated.

[Private Dancer]

Oct 20, 2021 20:44:45 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

Oct 20, 2021 19:26:06 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

Diane Warren: Unbreak My Heart, Love Will Lead You Back, Have You Ever, If I Could Turn Back Time, I'll Be Your Shelter, For You I Will, If You Asked Me To (Patti) and others.

She writes meaningful songs from the soul and she has classics that transcends generations.

All of this. Dianne Warren has written alot of songs that I had grown up with and she has worked with artists of different genres...pop, R&B, soul, and even Latin. Plus, her work is far more relatable and feels more timeless.

Never really cared for Max Martin. Most of his work is generic pop music and overrated.

I agree with everything you said including the bit about Max Martin!!! I didn't want to say it at first, but I totally agree!

[🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲]

Oct 20, 2021 20:53:43 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

Oct 20, 2021 20:44:45 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

All of this. Dianne Warren has written alot of songs that I had grown up with and she has worked with artists of different genres...pop, R&B, soul, and even Latin. Plus, her work is far more relatable and feels more timeless.

Never really cared for Max Martin. Most of his work is generic pop music and overrated.

I agree with everything you said including the bit about Max Martin!!! I didn't want to say it at first, but I totally agree!

Diane Warren has worked with alot of my fave artists, so she easily gets my vote.

Most of the acts Max has worked with, I've never been a huge fan of or cared for their music.

[Private Dancer]

Oct 20, 2021 20:58:13 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

Oct 20, 2021 20:53:43 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

I agree with everything you said including the bit about Max Martin!!! I didn't want to say it at first, but I totally agree!

Diane Warren has worked with alot of my fave artists, so she easily gets my vote.

Most of the acts Max has worked with, I've never been a huge fan of or cared for their music.

Mine too! The thing about Diane is that her ballads can be turned into any genre. Her music is timeless and is still played everywhere. Not to mention, the countless sales, good critique, and accolades her songs have received. She makes music for the soul and not for the radio and dance floor. Unbreak My Heart, Love Will Lead You Back, For You I Will, If You Asked Me To (Patti), those are beautiful timeless songs.

[Caviar]

Diane wrote off my fav songs by Fantasia “I Feel Beautiful” which sounded completely different for her.

[Night Senses]

Diane is too formulaic. You could say the same about Max’s earlier work, but he at least had expanded beyond teen pop and evolved. You kind of know what you’re getting from Diane and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless she’s not winning Oscars because “it’s tried and true, something old and never new.”

No shade. Diane is a legend and I love her work. But when it comes to a palette of variety, she is terrified to write a song that isn’t Diane Warren-esque.

[Willow Rinadoobee Breakfast]

Max Martin. While Warren has some guilty pleasure ballads of mine from the 90's, nearly every modern song that gets her nominated constantly feels like words in a blender straight from Hallmark cards.

[Deleted]

Favorites from Diane Warren:










Favorites from Max Martin (warning, there are a lot of them):

















Maybe it's just due to sheer volume of output or maybe it's because Diane is from before my time, but I gotta go with Max here. I didn't realized he'd produced THAT many songs I loved.

[Private Dancer]

Oct 21, 2021 1:16:17 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

Favorites from Diane Warren:










Favorites from Max Martin (warning, there are a lot of them):

















Maybe it's just due to sheer volume of output or maybe it's because Diane is from before my time, but I gotta go with Max here. I didn't realized he'd produced THAT many songs I loved.

I didn't know Diana wrote that Xcsape song!! I'm even more shocked that you like it!

[jdanton2]

Diane Warren's pop and r&b ballads were among the best of the 90's.

[Jay D83]

I used to buy whole albums just because Diane Warren wrote **1** song. She's in my top 5 favorite songwriters. I thank Max Martin for his contributions to the teen pop explosion of the late 90s - that's all.

[Dreams]

Max Martin

I like Diane Warren fine, and her work from the mid-80s up to the mid-90s has produced several gems, but Max Martin is kind of a phenomenon. Usually a producer/songwriter has a (relatively short) period when he's cranking out hit after hit thanks to establishing a certain sound (think, say, Timbaland in 2006). The incredible thing about Max Martin, though, is that he keeps making comeback after comeback, hitting career peak after peak, while re-inventing himself constantly AND offering variety in his sound. Since his debut he must be the most brilliant producer in popular music to date.

[Ling-Ling]

I'm not super nostalgic for the teen pop boom of the late 90's/early 2000's (barring a few tracks). And that pop/rock era of the 2000's is one of my least favorite periods of pop music ever. Max became a much more interesting producer/song-writer in the 2010's IMO.

Measuring Diane's 80's and 90's material against his 2010's material, I give the edge to her in terms of my personal preference. He's had the greater impact on the industry though. And the fact that he's still having massive hits this far into his career is astounding.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I like a lot of Diane Warren’s songs but I’ve never felt that they were anything more than generic love (or lost love) songs. They’ve never really felt personal to me. It also seems like she had more variety in the beginning before settling into what became her template.
In contrast, I think Max Martin, while his productions were VERY samey at his start - interchangeable even - they eventually went on to have a more expansive sound with his productions.

[back2blk]

This could be a generational thing, coupled with my personal tastes for love songs, but while Max Martin was definitely a FORCE for some of the biggest pop acts, nothing he's written has MOVED ME like some of the songs Diane has written for some of my favorite artists (and non-favorites).

[Choco]

Max and it ain't even close.

[Glove Slap]

Easily Max. Far more interesting by this point. Many many times over.

Diane has written solid classics, but she has a certain style which hasn't aged well. She's like the female David Foster. Generic cheesy love songs, but of high quality. At one point I would have said that her catalog was more varied than Martin's, but that ended a while back.

[degen]

Oct 21, 2021 1:16:17 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

Favorites from Diane Warren:










Favorites from Max Martin (warning, there are a lot of them):

















Maybe it's just due to sheer volume of output or maybe it's because Diane is from before my time, but I gotta go with Max here. I didn't realized he'd produced THAT many songs I loved.

“DJ Got Us Fallin In Love” and “Scream”? Just no. Those are some of the most uninspired Usher songs of his entire career. They both sound like Jason Derulo rejects. And that’s a pretty bad standard to be at.

It’s exactly what I mean about Max Martin’s “early 2010s” sound that I’m not too particularly fond of. Every song he was writing and producing then we’re very vanilla and standard, with most having a similar beat to Kesha’s “Tik Tok.” I feel like in this point in his career he became too commercial perhaps. The only gem i can pluck out of this era is “Teenage Dream.”

Also, it became harder to distinguish his sound from Dr. Luke. They basically became twin pop producers at that point in their careers.

Maybe that’s the thing about Max Martin, when singers go to him and ask him for the standard, the output is poor quality. But when they go to him with creative ideas, you get good output like the stuff he’s done with The Weekend.

[wjr15]

Diane Warren has some nice power ballads that I enjoy but I’d easily pick Max Martin over her.

His work with Britney, BSB, Kelly, P!nk, Katy, Kesha, Taylor, Ariana, and The Weeknd easily wins him over as my favorite producer of all time. I even like some of the few songs he did with other artists like Adele, Ellie, Gaga, Sam Smith, Demi, Selena, *NSYNC

[Jay D83]

Oct 22, 2021 7:36:16 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

Easily Max. Far more interesting by this point. Many many times over.

Diane has written solid classics, but she has a certain style which hasn't aged well. She's like the female David Foster. Generic cheesy love songs, but of high quality. At one point I would have said that her catalog was more varied than Martin's, but that ended a while back.

I mean in the 90s David was pretty much her producing partner. She wrote the songs and he produced most of them.

[Ernesto]

Max Martin is obviously talented and knows how to write a hook but I prefer Diana Warren's songs. Different people like different things. Just the other day "Blame It on the Rain" and "Only Love Can Hurt Like This" were played back to back on my favourite AC station. Phenomenal stuff!

[Jay D83]

Oct 22, 2021 21:10:00 GMT -5 Ernesto said:

Max Martin is obviously talented and knows how to write a hook but I prefer Diana Warren's songs. Different people like different things. Just the other day "Blame It on the Rain" and "Only Love Can Hurt Like This" were played back to back on my favourite AC station. Phenomenal stuff!

"Blame It On The Rain" was the first song I remember really loving. I still love it.