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01.02.13 MusicWeek 17
The chart below shows the top songwriters of 2012 based on shares of the UK’s 100 biggest-selling singles of the year. Source: Music Week research/Official Charts Company data
TOP 100 SONGWRITERS OF THE YEAR 2012 POS SONGWRITER(S) / PUBLISHER
1 ADAM WILES AKA CALVIN HARRIS 2 SIA FURLER Sony/ATV/EMI
Sony/ATV/EMI 3 FUN Sony/ATV/EMI, Warner/Chappell
4 CARL FALK AND RAMI YACOUB BMG 5 COLDPLAY Universal
Chrysalis, Kobalt
21 TRAMAR DILLARD AKA FLO RIDA 22 ED SHEERAN Sony/ATV/EMI
Sony/ATV/EMI
23 TIMOTHY MCKENZIE AKA LABRINTH 24 FLORENCE WELCH Universal 25 CLAUDE KELLY Warner/Chappell
Sony/ATV/EMI
6 JOHAN SCHUSTER AKA SHELLBACK Kobalt 26 ARNTHOR BIRGISSON Kobalt 7= LUIZ BONFA Carlin
The DJ Fresh featuring Rita Ora hit Hot Right Now, the year’s 24th best seller, is excluded from the calculations as it is currently the subject of a publishing dispute. 41 DAVID GUETTA What A Publishing
42 HOAX & CRAZE (HUGO CHEGWIN, HARRY 43 GIORGIO TUINFORT Bucks
CRAZE) Sony/ATV/EMI
44 ELLIOT GLEAVE AKA EXAMPLEUniversal 45 JEREMY FRAITES AND WESLEY SCHULTZ
(THE LUMINEERS) Kobalt 46 WAYNE HECTOR Warner/Chappell 27 LUKASZ GOTTWALD AKA DR LUKE Kobalt 47= ALEX CLAREUniversal
7= WALTER DE BACKER AKA GOTYE Kobalt 28 MICHAEL POSNER Sony/ATV/EMI 29 THE SMEEZINGTONS BMG Chrysalis,
9 PARK JAI-SANG AKA PSY Universal
10 MARTIN SANDBERG AKA MAX MARTIN 11 EMELI SANDE Sony/ATV/EMI
Kobalt 12 SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA Universal Sony/ATV/EMI, Universal 30 GARY BARLOW Sony/ATV/EMI 31 SAM AND THE WOMP Perfect Songs 32 SHAFFER SMITH AKA NE-YO Imagem
13 WILL ADAMS AKA
WILL.I.AM. BMG Chrysalis 33 FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD Perfect 14 INA WROLDSEN P and P Songs 15= CARLY RAE JEPSEN C/C 15= JOSHUA RAMSAY C/C
Songs
34 HENRY WALTER AKA CIRKUT Kobalt 35 SAVAN KOTECHA Kobalt
17 STARGATE (MIKKEL ERIKSEN AND TOR 18 KESI DRYDEN, PIERS AGGETT, AMIR 19 PAUL EPWORTHSony/ATV/EMI
ERIK HERMANSEN) Sony/ATV/EMI AMOR (RUDIMENTAL) Sony/ATV/EMI 20 BENJAMIN LEVIN AKA BENNY BLANCO Kobalt
37 TMS (THOMAS BARNES, PETE KELLEHER, 38 SOFLY & NIUS (RAPHAEL JUDRIN AND 39 JEF MARTENS Bucks
BENJAMIN KOHN) Sony/ATV /EMI 40 DANIEL O’DONOGHUE, MARK SHEEHAN (THE SCRIPT) Imagem
and Ne-Yo chart-topper Let Me Love You (Until You Learn To Love). In third place New York City’s Fun are the only
Americans among the year’s Top 10 hit songwriters. With their members published by what is now Sony/ATV/EMI and Warner/Chappell, the group had the year’s third top single with We Are Young and 77th with Some Nights, both co-written by their producer Jeff Bhasker. He turns up in 53rd place on our songwriters chart. On the 2011 songwriters chart half the Top 10 places
were occupied by US names with The Smeezingtons in second place joined by Ester Dean, Lady Gaga, Claude Kelly and Dr Luke. While Gaga is missing this time, there are re-appearances in 2012 by the others, but in lower positions. Top songwriters of 2010, The Smeezingtons are 29th this time courtesy of BMG Chrysalis-published Bruno Mars’ hit Locked Out Of Heaven, while Universal’s Dean is 57th thanks to hits by Rihanna and David Guetta. In 25th and 27th places respectively,
Warner/Chappell’s Kelly and Kobalt’s Dr Luke shared credits on Jessie J’s Domino, while Kelly’s run also included Olly Murs hits Troublemaker and Dance With Me Tonight and Luke’s Katy Perry smashes Part Of Me and Wide Awake. The lack of Americans in the year’s songwriters Top 10 does not, unfortunately, from a British perspective open up many opportunities for domestic writers with Calvin Harris joined by only one other UK act, Universal’s Coldplay whose fifth place is down to their second singles chart-topper in Paradise and Rihanna pairing Princess Of China. Instead, the chart’s top table reflects just what a cosmopolitan place the world of songwriting is these days with the two Brits and one US band joined by Australian
47= JIM DUGUID Warner/Chappell 49= NORMAN COOK ASongs
49= HARLEY ALEXANDER-SULE, JORDAN 51 SONNY MOORE AKA SKRILEX Kobalt 52 ADELE ADKINSUniversal
53 JEFFREY BHASKERSony/ATV/EMI 54 CHARLES WRIGHT Warner/Chappell
36 ONIKA MARAK AKA NICKI MINAJ Universal 55= ESPIONAGE (AMUND BJOERKLUND, ESPEN LIND) Sony/ATV/EMI
57 ESTER DEAN Universal
PIERRE-ANTOINE MELKI) Warner/Chappell 58= ELZABETH GRANT AKA LANA DEL REY 58= JUSTIN PARKER Sony/ATV/EMI
Sony/ATV/EMI 60 TOM KELLY AND BILLY STEINBERG Sony/ATV/EMI STEPHENS (RIZZLE KICKS) BMG Chrysalis
61 JESSICA CORNISH AKA JESSIE J Sony/ATV/EMI 81= SIDNEY RUSSELL Music Sales 62 OLLY MURS Universal
81= BOBBY SCOTT Jenny 63 TIM BERGLING AKA AVICII Sony/ATV/EMI 83= DAVID GLASS Sony/ATV/EMI
64 RICHARD COWIE AKA WILEY Sony/ATV/EMI 83= MARCUS KILLIAN CC 65 STEVE ROBSON Imagem
85 GREG KURSTIN Sony/ATV/EMI
66 NICK VAN DE WALL AKA AFROJACKBucks 86 DAYO OLATUNJI AKA MS D CC 67 ADAM LEVINE Universal
68 BROOK BENTONSony/ATV/EMI
69 FUTURECUT (TUNDE BABALOLA, DARREN 70 ROBBIE WILLIAMS Farrell/Notting Hill
LEWIS) Kobalt
71 THE INVISIBLE MEN (JASON P, GEORGE A, 72= MARTIN LINDSTROM Kobalt 72= MICHEL ZITRON Kobalt 74 KEON YOO Sony/ATV/EMI
JONATHAN SHAVE) Sony/ATV/EMI, Universal 55= PATRICK MONAHAN (TRAIN) Sony/ATV/EMI 75 AMMAR MALIKKobalt 76 RODNEY HWINGWIRI Sony/ATV/EMI 77 AZEALIA BANKS Sony/ATV/EMI 78= JASON MRAZ Fintage
78= MICHAEL NATTER Great Hooks 80 LADY ANTEBELLUM Sony/ATV/EMI,
Warner/Chappell
87 ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER Really Useful 88 IAIN JAMES Sony/ATV/EMI
89 JO PERRY Kobalt 90= RAPHAEL JUDRINWarner/Chappell 90= PIERRE-ANTOINE MELKI Warner/Chappell 92 FIONA BEVANImagem 93 TAYLOR SWIFT Sony/ATV/EMI
94 STEFAN GORDY, SKYLER GORDY (LMFAO) 95 ADAM YOUNG AKA OWL CITY Universal 96 JAMES “JIMBO” BARRYCC 97= BONNIE MCKEE Kobalt 97= KATY PERRYWarner/Chappell
Global Talent 99 NADIR KHAYAT AKA REDONE Sony/ATV/EMI 100 KENNY OLIVERKobalt
Furler, a Belgian-Australian, four Swedes, a Brazilian and a South Korean. The pairing of BMG Chrysalis’s Carl Falk and Kobalt’s
Rami Yacoub leads the Swedish showing in fourth place having collaborated on a series of big hits across the year, among them Nicki Minaj’s Starships and Pound The Alarm and the One Direction singles What Makes You Beautiful and Live While We’re Young. They are joined in sixth place by the Kobalt-signed Shellback who has credits on six of the year’s Top 100 downloads, led by Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa’s Payphone, but also including the same band’s Moves Like Jagger and One More Night and hits by Taylor Swift, Sean Paul and Usher. Shellback collaborated on One More Night, Swift’s
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and Usher’s Scream with fellow Swede and Kobalt colleague Max Martin who is in the credits on an unrivalled seven of the year’s Top 100 singles and takes 10th spot on the songwriters chart. Another Kobalt signing, Aussie-Belgian Gotye, shares seventh place with the late Brazilian composer Luiz Bonfa after his Carlin-controlled composition Seville was sampled on Somebody That I Used To Know, the year’s top-selling single. Directly below them is South Korean PSY whose Universal co-wrote Gangnam Style sold nearly 880,000 copies by the end of 2012. Across the whole Top 100 songwriters chart 14 nations
are represented with the countdown also including names from Belgium, France, Ireland, Morocco, the Netherlands, Zimbabwe and Canada, among them Carly Rae Jepsen and her main Call Me Maybe collaborator Joshua Ramsay, and Norway with P and P’s Ina Wroldsen registering after her Shontelle co-write Impossible with another Swede, Kobalt’s Arnthor Birgisson, was covered by X Factor winner James
Arthur. Wroldsen finishes 12 places higher than Birgisson at 14 as she also co-wrote Cover Drive’s Twilight. Sony/ATV/EMI’s hitmaking Norwegian duo Stargate
are present in the annual songwriters chart again having been runners-up in 2010 and fifth the following year. They are placed 17th for 2012 with their run including two chart- toppers in Rihanna’s Diamonds and Rita Ora’s RIP. On what was a Top 50 songwriters chart compiled for 2011 UK songwriters claimed a 34.3% share. The chart has been extended to 100 positions this time, although the UK share remains about the same at 34.3%, just behind the US on 36.7%, 19% from the rest of Europe and 10% from the rest of the world. The fractions of a percent are explained by songwriting collaborators who are ranked together on our chart having different nationalities. Among the Brits Emeli Sande just misses out on a
Top 10 position, finishing 11th after four of her songs appeared in the year’s Top 100, while her Sony/ATV/EMI colleague Ed Sheeran is 22nd having been placed fourth a year ago. Unsurprisingly, Universal-signed Adele led the UK charge in 2011. A year on her ranking is a more modest 52nd, all down to her Bond theme Skyfall, while its co-writer, Sony/ATV/EMI’s Paul Epworth is 19th having also co-penned Florence + The Machine’s first UK singles chart-topper Spectrum. Florence Welch, signed to Universal, is 24th thanks to Spectrum and her Calvin Harris collaboration Sweet Nothing. The UK presence also includes Sony/ATV/EMI’s
Labrinth whose 23rd place is down to Beneath Your Beautiful and Earthquake. A double Perfect Songs showing has Bom Bom chart-toppers Sam and The Womp at 31 and Frankie Goes To Hollywood at 33 via Gabrielle Aplin’s cover of their 1984 hit The Power Of Love.
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