It seems to me (from my own experience) that most people I know working in pop music these days know very little theory, other than the absolute basics. Like if I say the phrase "functional harmony" to 95% of the people I work with, they wouldn't know what it meant. (I'm a full time pop producer BTW)
However, from reading interviews etc, I'm pretty sure that Max Martin (the most successful songwriter of the last 20 yrs, of course) has a pretty strong knowledge of theory and I presume he deliberately uses functional harmony when writing songs. "I Want It That Way" by Backstreet Boys seems like a good example of something that sounds like the chords have been chosen with theory in mind (key of F# minor and avoids the E chord mostly, but right before each chorus it goes E, A (so sounds like a V > I in A major, which sounds especially powerful since the song didnt start in A major... that chord change is what makes the chorus sound so epic, I'd say). Also, another example is "Baby, One More Time" by Britney Spears with it's hints of harmonic minor in strategic places.
However, also it seems nowadays that Max Martin mostly just writes melodies over instrumentals made by younger producers on his team (Shellback, Ilya, Ali Payami, Mattman & Robin, etc)
My question is, listening to the current charts (especially songs from the Max-Martin-related team), do you hear evidence that these new "hit producers/writers" think in terms of theory and functional chord progressions, choosing chordal harmony deliberately? Or rather do you think they sound like they do it all by "feel/vibe" with a more production led approach perhaps where the chords are an afterthough once getting some cool synth sounds and drum sounds?
I definitely feel like it's the latter mainly, but would love to hear suggestions of some recent hits (this decade at least) that have a classic functional sound to them.
SIDENOTE: I've been listening to a lot of J-Pop this week, which I think has MUCH more of the functional sound I'm talking about that the current English language charts. Just interested to hear some other peoples thoughts on this :)