Writer-producer busbee had the ideal mentality for the genre-blurring practices of this millennium. The former jazz musician and California native started shuttling between Los Angeles and Nashville in the aughts, writing with and for pop and country heavy-hitters alike. He had success with Kelly Clarkson, P!nk, 5 Seconds of Summer and Christina Aguilera, but those impressive credits were dwarfed by his impact in Nashville, where he helped steer the industry towards a more pop-style process of creating a hooky song and the rhythm-driven track beneath it simultaneously. Loads of crossover-minded country acts gravitated to busbee’s work, including Florida Georgia Line, Rascal Flatts, Lady Antebellum and Keith Urban, but he was especially well known for helping shape the breakthrough albums of Maren Morris.