ASCAP taps '99 honorees

Steely Dan among year's best

By DON WALLER

Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Swedish tunesmith Max Martin, Goo Goo Dolls front man John Rzeznik and EMI Music Publishing garnered top honors at perf-rights org ASCAP's 17th annual Pop Awards ceremony, held Monday night at the Beverly Hilton hotel.

Fagen and Becker -- the songwriters, producers and principal performers of the multiplatinum Steely Dan group -- received the ASCAP Founders award, which recognizes a lifetime achievement in songwriting. Previous recipients include Stephen Sondheim, Joni Mitchell, Hal David and Burt Bacharach, Quincy Jones, Jule Styne, Smokey Robinson, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, Stevie Wonder and Billy Joel.

"Slide" -- written by Rzeznik, performed by the Goo Goo Dolls and published by Corner of Clark & Kent Music and EMI Music -- won song of the year by virtue of its having racked up the most performances in the 1999 American Society of Composers Authors & Publishers survey year.

Max Martin took home his second straight songwriter of the year award by placing four songs he wrote or co-wrote on ASCAP's most performed list: 'N Sync's "Tearin' Up My Heart," Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time" and the Backstreet Boys' "As Long as You Love Me" and "I Want It That Way." Martin -- a member of the Swedish perf-rights org Stim -- licenses his music through ASCAP in the U.S.

With 14 songs among the org's most performed tunes, EMI captured ASCAP's publisher of the year honors.

Rock group Built to Spill scored the ASCAP's college radio award and the Cellar Door's Jack Boyle walked off with the partner in music award, which honors exemplary ASCAP customers.

During the course of the black-tie gala hosted by ASCAP prexy-chair Marilyn Bergman, 88 songwriters -- six of whom were multiple winners -- were honored.