A great book about the prodigiousness of Max Martin and other Swedish producers: "The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory". Lots of industry tales about artist who did and didn't take the advice of their producers. Kelly Clarkson, for example, stopped taking Max Martin's advice after her breakout album and slowly declined with fewer recognizable hits.

The theme: Hits can't be planned or predicted. It's a numbers game where you keep trying to make a large number of them and eventually something breaks through.