Who are Taylor Swift collaborators Max Martin and Shellback?

By Laura Harding, Deputy Entertainment Editor

Taylor Swift reunites with Swedish powerhouse producers Max Martin and Shellback for her 12th studio album The Life Of A Showgirl.

She last worked with the duo in 2017 on her album Reputation but has since favoured collaborations with Jack Antonoff and The National’s Aaron Dessner.

Her reunion with Martin and Shellback, who helped deliver the 2014 pop juggernaut album 1989, signifies a return to chart-topping, crowd-pleasing pop music.

Martin has helped serve up hits for some of pop’s biggest stars since the 1990s, with artists such as Britney Spears, NSync, and the Backstreet Boys, and more recently Katy Perry, Ariana Grande and The Weeknd.

He is considered to be so influential in pop music – behind tracks such as Hit Me Baby One More Time by Spears, I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys, Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson, Teenage Dream and I Kissed A Girl by Perry, and Blinding Lights by The Weeknd – that there is a whole musical featuring his songs, & Juliet.

He has co-written and co-produced 22 songs with Swift and his long-term collaborator Shellback, including 22, I Knew You Were Trouble and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together from her album Red, and Blank Space, Style, Shake It Off, and Bad Blood from 1989.

They are also credited on Reputation songs including Ready For It?, End Game and Gorgeous.

Martin, Shellback (real name Karl Johan Schuster) and Swift are the sole credited producers for The Life Of A Showgirl, hinting that the album will be more pop-focused than recent efforts such as Folklore and Evermore, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department.

Martin is famous for the hooks of his pop anthems and Swift has said she wants this album to be a return to “bangers”.

Speaking on fiance Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast, she said the album comes from “the most infectiously, joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life”.