This is the hot rod driving off the cliff. At this point, the music industry is in its Caligula phase, whatever that means to you. Baby One More Time,” also the title of her 1999 debut album that sells 25 million copies worldwide, which is just a flabbergasting number. So here is where the late-’90s teen-pop supernova begins in earnest, with Britney’s “. In 1998, in the wake of Denniz Pop’s death, Max took the reins at Cheiron Studios, and later that year, as the writer and coproducer, he helped redefine what the term global success even means. When Max Martin won the Polar Music Prize in 2016-it’s a Swedish royalty thing-Max praised Denniz, saying, “He made me realize how difficult it is to make things sound simple.” Max added that the two secrets to writing the perfect pop song, in no particular order, were love (meaning his wife) and stealing from the best (meaning primarily Prince, KISS, and ABBA). Denniz Pop, who’d already coproduced even bigger Ace of Base songs, including “The Sign,” died of stomach cancer in 1998 he’s clearly a beloved figure in this universe, as a musician and as a human.