Blokur release major new global songwriting report

13 July 2021 - Press release

TONES AND I REVEALED AS WORLD’S BIGGEST SONGWRITER

 

Blokur, the specialists in ensuring music publishers, labels and CMOs, increase royalty collections through more accurate rights data and better usage matching, has released a major new report into the global songwriting community.

‘The Blokur 2020 Songwriters Review,’ which is free to download, takes a forensic look into music consumption in 2020 and reveals who the biggest songwriters were. 

Using Blokur’s database, songwriters were ranked according to their share of each song and the popularity of the song in the Spotify, Apple, Amazon and YouTube charts.

The methodology used to compile this list of the world’ s top songwriters was as follows:

 

Songwriter share of the song divided by total available shares in the Top 100 multiplied by the number of days the song appeared in the platform chart.

Song popularity was based on the number of days in 2020 each song appeared in each platform’s flagship chart with the focus on Spotify’s Global Top 200, Apple’s Global Top 100, Amazon’s all genre Top 200 and YouTube’s Top 100 Global Weekly chart. Songwriter share information was then pulled from Blokur’s database for the Top 100 most popular songs in 2020 on each platform. 

Once all of the data was extrapolated the biggest songwriter was revealed as Tones and I – aka Toni Watson – who wrote 100% of her massive global smash, Dance Monkey. The fact Watson wrote 100% of the song is, unsurprisingly, a key factor in her taking the top spot. Dance Monkey, originally released in May 2019, has racked up over 2.2 billion plays on Spotify to date, while its official YouTube video has over 1.6 billion views. 

When looking at the individual platforms Kobalt signing Finneas O’Connell, for example, was the top songwriter on Spotify having penned hits for his sister Billie Eilish, including 50% of Bad Guy and Everything I Wanted and 100% for When the Party’s Over, as well as releasing music as an independent artist himself (via AWAL). In addition, he co-wrote/co-produced tracks released in 2020 by the likes of Demi Lovato, Celeste, Halsey, and Justin Bieber/Benny Blanco.

YouTube with its huge demographic spread and popularity in major markets such as India saw rapper Badshah come out top in the songwriting stakes.  His own channel on YouTube has over 2 million subscribers and has attracted over 261 million views and his  most popular videos on YouTube have been released via Sony Music India’s channel, via hits like She Move It Like (432m views) and Genda Phool (832m views).

The report also highlights less well-known names who were behind the biggest hits of 2020 and reveals that more than a third of top songwriters were not a featured artist on the record. 

There is also analysis of the different types of songs and songwriters thriving on the different major digital platforms, and the role that each platform’s strategy has in attracting different types of listeners, such as the impact of Alexa for Amazon in driving  more country, rock and family friendly music , the iPhones importance in Apple’s success delivering  Japanese music on its platform and the role of YouTube’s  open ecosystem and subscription free model leading to it having more non-English language music than any other platform.

Blokur works with the world’s music community, including music publishers responsible for over 70% of market share, to take the pain out of paying and getting paid for music. For music users including major digital platforms and the global sync community, Blokur makes it easier to licence and pay for music, so that they can grow their business while ensuring that creators get paid what they should, when they should.

Phil Barry, Founder of Blokur said, “Songs are the raw ingredient of our industry. Without songs and songwriters, the records that soundtrack our lives would not exist, the platforms and radio stations that entertain us would have nothing to play, and the concerts and festivals that bring us together would fall silent. But while we’re all familiar with the names of the artists behind chart hits, we don’t always get to see the songwriters behind the songs At Blokur, our mission is to fulfill the potential of the internet for the creator. We are proud to partner with the music publishing community to help ensure that royalties make their way to songwriters. And so at the beginning of this year we sat down to ask ourselves what we could do to shine a light on songwriters and songwriting. Today we are thrilled to announce the result: the release of Blokur’s 2020 Songwriters Review, celebrating the songs and songwriters that have such a big impact on our lives.”

 

Download the full report here