Stargate, I hate that I love you. No, actually, it’s more complicated than that: I don’t love Stargate and I’m surprised by the fact that they don’t appeal to me more. After all, I am a sucker for sweet melodies, strong hooks and sophisticated chord changes. And Stargate deliver in all these categories. They are the spearhead of the pop-oriented wave of new rnb that has been washing over us the latest years. Ever since Ne-Yo’s ‘So Sick’ – their big breakthrough as a production team – they have been growing steadily. By now they are one of the biggest and most reliable go-to teams in the industry. Basically, the Stargate duo of Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel S. Eriksen are for rnb today what The Neptunes were for rap during the first years of this decade. But do they deserve their status?

Stargate began their career producing songs for the British boyband 5ive, much in the vein of the similar Scandinavian hitmaker Max Martin, in the late 90’s. They turned to rnb after a couple of years (I remember their remix of Angie Stone’s ‘No More Rain’), but they have never lost their pop roots. And I think that’s an important fact. It’s no coincidence that the first major American artist they worked with, the one that they have had their longest-running collaboration with, is Rihanna – a singer equipped a voice very distant from the raw soul singing of, say, Mary J Blige. The Stargate touch is a light one, just like Rihanna’s is.

After producing the track ‘Let Me’ for Rihanna’s debut album Music of The Sun (2005), Stargate met Ne-Yo and co-wrote and produced four songs for his sensational debut album In My Own Words, released in 2006. Ne-Yo is, together with The-Dream, responsible for making songwriting something highly regarded again, which I am extremely grateful for. But just like Tricky Stewart is an indispensable part of The-Dream’s sound, Stargate are Ne-Yo’s right hand – they are the guys who have made his beautiful songs accessible and radio-friendly. ‘Irreplaceable’ would have been a magical song in any shape – but it was Stargate’s acoustic guitars and old-school 808 drums that made it such a colossal hit.

Since Ne-Yo’s ‘So Sick’, Beyoncé’s ‘Irreplaceable’ and Rihanna’s ‘Don’t Stop The Music’, Stargate have been the Norwegian kings of American rnb, and they no longer need to hire Ne-Yo to create their hits. But what at first glance appears to be gifted craftsmanship is actually, if you ask me, something else. After hearing song after song written and produced by Stargate, you start to notice the patterns. They keep recycling their ideas, all songs are steeped in the same mold; the process is mechanical, I would even like to call it cynical. Because what is the core of a Stargate song, really? It’s not the kind of song you want to dance all night to (’Don’t Stop The Music’ is more workout music than anything else). It’s not the kind of song that works as a soundtrack for seduction. It’s not the kind of song that makes you soar high in the sky with romantic feelings (compare any Stargate song to Ciara’s ‘Promise’!). It’s not the kind of song that you want to listen to a thousand times in a row after your beloved one has left you. It’s not the kind of song that changes your life.

What is it, then? It’s a song you hear on the radio. No more, no less. The soul of Stargate is not deep, not cool, not sexy, not anything. Therein probably lies the key to their success: their songs are never too much, they are never annoying, they never leave a mark on you. People can enjoy them when they hear them without losing themselves in the music. The listener can ascribe whatever feelings they want to the songs, because the songs themselves are clean and empty. It is exactly what record company executives love. It is the opposite of soul music.

But just when a person like me decides to never listen to a Stargate song again, something unexpected happens. This unexpected something was ‘Miss Independent’, Ne-Yo’s summer single of last year. It struck me with the power of true RnB dynamite. I don’t know what it was that gave the song such an impact – it might have been those stabbing chords, the laser-sharp synth loop or maybe just the fact that Ne-Yo was so desperate, tragic and sympathetic in his quest for a comeback. Ironically, ‘Miss Independent’ re-uses old material like no Stargate song before it – essentially, it is a new version of Little Bit’s ‘Forget About Me’, containing the same chords and melody. But that doesn’t matter, since ‘Miss Independent’ is a much better song than the original. It’s the kind of song that pulls you in and lifts you up, just like a whirlwind. My heart kept beating in sync with the synth. It still does.

When the album (Year of the Gentleman) came out, there were three more Stargate songs on it: the single ‘Closer’, ‘Back To What You Know’, and ‘Mad’. The first two were as bad and boring as anything I have come to expect from Stargate, but ‘Mad’ was actually even better than ‘Miss Independent’ – it reached #25 on Plain Gold’s “Best of 2008” list, by the way. What that song had, which was actually lacking from ‘Miss Independent’, was a touching lyric. Well, I guess we got Ne-Yo to thank for that.

In any case, the album got me puzzled: did Stargate really deserve my hostility? Apparently, there are exceptions to the rule. The rule still applies, though – the Stargate songs that have been released after Year Of The Gentleman are frustratingly formulaic and cynical. ‘Ave Maria’, from Beyoncé’s I am… Sasha Fierce, for example, is a syrupy simplification of Schubert’s profoundly beautiful old song, and the other Stargate song of that album (’Broken Hearted Girl’) is no better. But even if a songwriting and production team create 99% predictable garbage and 1% plain gold, that gold deserves credit. My advice to the Stargate guys is this: stick with Ne-Yo, because it seems like only he can squeeze something memorable out of your tunes. Maybe the combined skills of Stargate and Ne-Yo should make a whole album for Michael Jackson, and give the king of pop the comeback he deserves? I can’t help but wait.