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PUBLISHING SPECIAL Q2 SONGWRITING ANALYSIS EDITORIAL
Lucky man Pharrell spreads the success
Standing next to that blonde in the Blurred Lines video isn’t the only reason Pharrell Williams is grinning widely right now. Thanks to that hit and Daft Punk’s Get Lucky he is currently the hottest hitmaker on the planet after co-writing two songs that have each sold a million copies in the UK and occupied the top two positions on the Billboard Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks. His run has also yet again demonstrated how just one song
can completely transform a career. Before Blurred Lines few people in the UK had heard of Robin Thicke, but his face is now everywhere and that mega smash has sent him straight to the top of the albums chart. Williams’ presence has further worked its magic on Daft Punk with the global success the French duo are experiencing with Get Lucky and Random Access Memories far greater than
“Pharrell Williams’ run has yet again demonstrated how just one song can completely transform a career”
anything they realised when they first broke through. It is therefore utterly appropriate the Neptunes man should sit at the top of Music Week’s hit songwriters chart covering a quarter in which he achieved the extremely rare feat of co-penning its two biggest songs. Q2’s revivals do not end there because the same Daft Punk track has also completely reawakened interest in Nile Rodgers, back in the limelight in a way he hasn’t been since Chic were hitting the charts 35 years ago with Good Times and Le Freak. His big contribution to Get Lucky has once again made him a man in demand, including turning Chic’s Glastonbury set into an essential watch, even if it didn’t actually feature the Daft Punk hit.
Besides Rodgers, the songwriting world had plenty of other comebacks in the quarter to cherish, welcoming back into its fold after two decades Rod Stewart. During that time he hardly disappeared from the limelight. In fact, the first dozen years of this century were among his most commercially successful, but totally driven by albums of covers rather than any original material. His return to creating songs himself has been nothing short of an absolute triumph with new album Time locked in the UK Top 10 since its release in May and placing him in second place behind Daft Punk on Music Week’s chart of the most successful album songwriters of the quarter. We should also devote a mention to Black Sabbath who
joined Rodgers and Stewart with a No 1 over the three months with their first studio album featuring Ozzy Osbourne since 1978. The returning legends, however, should not overshadow plenty to excite with new talent on the homefront with Rudimental, Disclosure and Tom Odell all topping the chart in the quarter with mainly self-penned debut albums. Arguably outshining all of them, however, was Passenger, the
latest example of a British artist who had to taste fame across many parts of the world before the UK finally got round to noticing him.
Paul Williams, Head of Business Analysis Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing
paul.williams@intentmedia.co.uk
Passenger top British songwriter, Pharrell leads UK sales with Daft Punk and Robin Thicke co-writes
PUBLISHING BY PAUL WILLIAMS
P
harrell Williams marked his 40th birthday in real style in Q2 as Get Lucky and Blurred Lines made him into the period’s most
successful hit songwriter. The Neptunes co-founder, who reached 40 on
April 5, saw his co-writes finish as the two biggest- selling singles in the quarter with combined UK sales of more than 1.8 million units. Williams was also a featured vocalist on the Daft
Punk and Robin Thicke-fronted tracks, which by a comfortable distance secured him top position on Music Week’s exclusive chart ranking songwriters by their shares of the quarter’s 100 top-selling tracks in the UK, based on Official Charts Company data. Until Get Lucky reached No 1 in April he had
only ever climbed as high as 3 on the weekly UK singles chart with Can I Have It Like That with Gwen Stefani in 2005, but had to wait just seven days after the Daft Punk cut’s four-week reign ended for Blurred Lines to debut at 1. Williams, signed to Sony/ATV-managed EMI
Publishing, is joined in the songwriters chart Top 10 by his Get Lucky co-writers Daft Punk and Nile Rodgers, while Universal-published Robin Thicke’s own contribution to Blurred Lines places him at No 9. Like Williams (pictured, above, with Thicke and
TI), Daft Punk’s pairing of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo had also never reached No 1 before in the UK prior to Get Lucky, but their writing shares of the million-selling track
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pharrell Williams Q2’s top hit songwriter after co- penning Get Lucky and Blurred Lines Get Lucky co-writers Daft Punk and Nile Rodgers among quarter’s leading hit songwriters, while French duo top album songwriting rankings Passenger runner-up on hit songwriters chart and third on equivalent album countdown Rod Stewart’s songwriting comeback places him only behind Daft Punk on album league table Sony/ATV has unrivalled 18 signings on hit songwriters chart, which boosts a 46% share of UK talent
places the Imagem signings at No 4 on the songwriters countdown. Four places below them sits Sony/ATV’s Nile Rodgers whose own credit on Get Lucky delivered him his first chart-topping single as a writer in the UK since another French act, Modjo, sampled the guitar loop of the Chic cut Soup For One for their 2000 hit Lady (Hear Me Tonight). An extremely close battle for second and third
spots played out on the songwriters chart with Brighton-based singer-songwriter Michael Rosenberg just edging out thanks to his Let Her Go hit under his alias Passenger. The Sony/ATV- published song sold 604,700 copies by the end of the quarter as it was outperformed only by Get Lucky and Blurred Lines. Just behind Rosenberg in third position are
Kobalt’s Macklemore and Ryan Lewis who were placed as runners-up on Q1’s chart when Thrift Shop outsold every other track. They make another strong showing as that breakthrough hit shifted another 170,244 copies over the following three
02.08.13 MusicWeek 19
NOT DAFT:
PHARRELL RULES POP
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