Celebrating the songs and songwriters of 2020

Download Blokur’s 2020 Songwriters Review, revealing the top songwriters and trends behind the music we listened to in 2020

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.

Click here to download the report: DOWNLOAD

We have drawn on Blokur’s music publishing database of writer and publisher splits as well as chart data for Spotify, Apple, Amazon and YouTube to identify the songs that spent the most time in the chart on each platform in 2020, and the songwriters who contributed the most to each of those songs.

In the report you will find our indexes of the top songwriters of 2020 overall and by platform, analysis of the different types of songs and songwriters thriving on the major music platforms, and stories and profiles about the songwriters and trends driving music listening in 2020.

You will see some names you expect, some names that may surprise you, and — we hope — some new names to explore. You’ll find songs and songwriters from the 1950s to the 2020s that are enriching the lives of people around the world and driving value for all parts of the music industry. If there is one thing the data shows over and over again it is this: as the barriers for distributing music continue to come down, there is nothing more valuable than that crucial raw ingredient — the song.

With special thanks to Stephanie Ezuma for designing and overseeing the report; and Selina Lau for the research and number-crunching behind the stories.