Who is Stargate? Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel S. Eriksen.
The two together as Stargate have become Grammy-award winning Norwegian record producing and songwriting team that is based in
The team has worked with various American artists and received mainstream awards including the Songwriters of the Year accolade at the 2007 ASCAP/PRS Awards. #1 Producers of the Year on the Billboard Hot 100 Year End Chart 2006 and 2008. Hitmakers of the Year in Rolling Stone magazine 2008. According to britishhitsongwriters.com Eriksen is the twenty seventh most successful songwriter in U.K. chart history based on weeks that his compositions have spent on the chart and Hermansen the thirtieth.[1]
Stargate began in 1997 as a song-writing trio, consisting of Tor Erik Hermansen, Mikkel S. Eriksen, and Hallgeir Rustan, in Trondheim, Norway.[2][3] When they first met, Hermansen was a talent scout for the Norwegian branch of the record label Warner Music Group, Eriksen owned a studio,[4] and Rustan was a mechanical engineer before becoming involved in music.[5] While in Norway, they ventured into the British market, mostly writing songs for R&B-pop performers.[5] At this time they called the team Stargate, a name specifically established for their projects in the United Kingdom.[5]
The team's initial successes were in the British market.[2] Stargate's first international success came with English pop outfit S Club, whose 1999 single "S Club Party" reached number one in Australia and the New Zealand. This success was followed with British pop group Hear'Say's single "The Way To Your Love", which peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart in 2001.[6] The team has also produced many Top 10 hits in the United Kingdom for acts such as Blue, Mis-Teeq and Atomic Kitten,[2] and worked with European acts Javine, Shola Ama, Five, and Samantha Mumba.[7][8]
The team had been listening to American hits and "trying to measure up".[2] They remixed American hip-hop and R&B songs, adding layers of melody to suit the European radio audience. In the wake of their early successes, the team had to choose whether to remain in Norway or move to pursue their goals: "We knew that to make the records we really wanted to make, we had to go to America."[2] Hermansen and Eriksen chose to produce records in the United States, while Rustan preferred to remain a producer in Norway because he did not want to leave his family behind.[3][5]
In 2001, Stargate produced and co-wrote songs for American pop singer Mikaila's
self-titled debut album. "So in Love With Two", a track from the album, had reached number 25 on the US Billboard Hot 100,[9] becoming one of the team's earliest co-written singles that appeared on the US charts. It was followed three years later with Mis-Teeq's
"Scandalous",
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which peaked at number 35 on the Hot 100 and number two in the United Kingdom.[4]
In the spring of 2005, Eriksen and Hermansen settled in New York. Initially, their work was slow until they met singer-songwriter Ne-Yo in a hallway at Sony Music Studios in New York. Ne-Yo, who had been working on his debut album, In My Own Words, decided to collaborate with the team, aware that Stargate produced R&B records. After listening to each other's music, a songwriting session ensued and spawned in its second day the song "So Sick", which later topped the Billboard Hot 100 and ushered Stargate into American pop songwriting.[2][4]
In 2006, Stargate broke into the American recording industry with the number-one single "So Sick", recorded by and co-written with Ne-Yo.[10] The team credited "So Sick" as their first big, mainstream American release.[11][12] Stargate and Ne-Yo collaborated on the hit single "Unfaithful" for Barbadian singer Rihanna's 2006 album A Girl Like Me.[2] In the same year, Stargate again collaborated with Ne-Yo for the single "Irreplaceable", recorded by American singer Beyoncé Knowles. The single topped the Billboard Hot 100 for ten consecutive weeks in 2007.[13] Also in 2006, Stargate gave American singer-songwriter Lionel Richie his first R&B hit, "I Call It Love",
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in 10 years.[14]
With the team's contributions to music, Stargate emerged as the number-one hot producer on the 2006 Billboard Year End Chart.[14] In the following year, Stargate received a Norwegian Grammy (Spellemann). The team received three awards at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards 2007 in Los Angeles, for the songs "So Sick",
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"Sexy Love"
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and "Unfaithful";
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and two awards at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Awards 2007 for "So Sick" and "Sexy Love". They were named Songwriters of the Year at the 2007 ASCAP/PRS in London, receiving nine awards including Song of the Year for "So Sick".[15][16]
In 2007, "Beautiful Liar",
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a duet between Knowles and Colombian singer Shakira, became another hit for Stargate, reaching number one in more than 30 countries including the United Kingdom.[17] The song earned Hermansen and Eriksen the Ivor Novello Award for Best-Selling British song. Although "Beautiful Liar" is chiefly an American song, it includes British songwriters Amanda Ghost
and Ian Dench,
thus eligible for the award.[18][19]
At the 2008 ASCAP Pop Music Awards, Hermansen and Eriksen
received five awards for most performed songs, including "Irreplaceable" among the top five.[20][21] Stargate was named Best Hitmakers in Rolling Stone magazine's "Best of Rock 2008".[22] Eriksen and Hermansen received Grammy nominations for five separate songs in six categories for the 2008 Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable", Best R&B Song for "Hate That I Love You" and Best Dance Record for "Don't Stop The Music".[8][23]
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On Ne-Yo's
third solo-album, Year of the Gentleman,
Stargate have produced and co-written four songs, among them the singles "Closer"
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and "Miss Independent", the latter of which had reached number one on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.[24] Stargate received nominations in more than 10 categories for the 2009 Grammy Awards.[25] They won their first Grammy in 2009 in the Best R&B Song category for "Miss Independent",
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performed by Ne-Yo.[26]
Stargate
teamed-up with American hip hop mogul Jay-Z to launch the record label StarRoc. The label, which is based at Jay-Z's The Mic studio in Manhattan, will be a 50/50 partnership with the team and Jay-Z's entertainment company Roc Nation.[27] Eriksen and Hermansen's connection with Jay-Z, who was then the CEO of the record label Def Jam, began with the release of "So Sick". They met through Ty Ty Smith,
A&R from record label Def Jam and a long-time friend of Jay-Z.[11]
In addition to their new venture, Eriksen signed a global co-publishing deal with EMI Music Publishing.[7] According to Music Week, his relationship with EMI will further the publishing company's involvement on Stargate's future projects.[28] Prior to the deal, EMI has been involved with Hermansen's projects for nearly ten years since he signed a deal in 1999.[7] Hermansen and Eriksen will also continue their joint-venture partnership, Stellar Songs, with EMI.[28]
Stargate chiefly produces songs in the genres R&B, pop, and hip hop.[4] Hermansen and Eriksen
grew up as R&B and hip hop fanatics in Norwegian suburbs, where most children listen to Euro pop and American rock.[22] Their interest in music started in the 1980s with breakdance and rap.[3] Eriksen and Hermansen were raised on pop music, growing up listening to music of 1970s pop group ABBA
and Germany-based pop outfit Boney M.
In an article by The New York Times, Barry Weiss,
president of Jive Records, who had hired Stargate to produce songs, "Those influences lend themselves to them making very melodic pop records, with great hooks and choruses."[2] According to the team, they have always loved American music, citing acts such as Prince,
Michael Jackson,
Usher,
Destiny's Child,
and R. Kelly
and the English band Depeche Mode
as their inspiration.[3] The team also cited producers Antonio "L.A." Reid
and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds
of the 1980s R&B band The Deele,
and R&B-pop production team Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
as their early influences.[4]
In their usual production style, Stargate first creates an instrumental backing track—also common in pop and hip hop productions—from which a collaborator would write lyrics and add vocal melody into.[2] In an interview with About.com, the team explained their style:
We always start out with a musical idea. Great effort goes into creating a solid melodic core. We both play the keyboards and program, but in general Mikkel plays the instruments and controls Pro Tools, while Tor has the executive overlook as well as lyrical input. However, we both are hands on and have no rules or limitations. When we have some killer beats and musical starting points, we hook up with one of our favorite topline writers, who gets cracking on the lyrics and melody. We make sure there's a lot of melody in the track, so it can inspire the writer. Together with the topline writer we work, often tweek and simplify the song, and never quit before we feel we've got a killer hook.[11]
Ben Sisario
of The New York Times described Stargate's music as "sugary, lilting R&B in the Michael Jackson
vein leavened with the kind of melody-rich European pop that paints everything in bright primary colors ... Their work carries on a tradition of Scandinavian bubble-gum artistry that stretches from Abba
to Max Martin"
.[2] Sisario added that, unlike other's producers in the United States, "Stargate signature is more difficult to detect, because to some degree the duo’s style is an adaptable method, not a specific sound".[2] Steve Lunt,
an A&R executive at Atlantic Records, pointed out, however, that "if you put a bunch of Stargate songs together you will see the thread running through them".[2]
Stargate's works have received critical response from mainstream publications. In a review for singer Jordin Sparks' self-titled debut album,
Rolling Stone magazine music critic Sheffield praised Stargate's works, calling them "most of the other winners" in the album.[29]
Critics find some of Stargate's
succeeding works a replica of "Irreplaceable"'s musical formula. Sheffield commented that, in the song "Tattoo" by Sparks, the team "have no shame about churning out 'Irreplaceable'
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replicants forever", reprising the acoustic guitar-drum loop formula.[29] The New York Times music critic Kelefa Sanneh
deemed it "sounds like a cousin" of "Irreplaceable".[30] The release of R&B singer Chris Brown's 2007 single "With You"
