Was Tones And I the world’s most successful songwriter in 2020?

Was Tones And I the most successful songwriter in the world last year? So claims a new chart to be launched by music rights data platform Blokur.

There is little doubting that Tones And I (real name Toni Watson) has been a major roller in the streaming space.

Last year, ‘Dance Monkey’ set a new Spotify record for most streamed song by an Australian artist and by a female artist when it reached two billion plays.

It was also announced as the most Shazamed song of all time, with 36.6 million hits on the app.

The chart, previewed by Music Business Worldwide, analyses how many weeks a song appeared in 2020 in each of the major streaming services’ flagship playlists – Spotify’s Global Top 200; Apple’s Global Top 100; Amazon’s all genre Top 200; and YouTube’s Top 100 Global Weekly chart.

The more a song appeared on different platforms, the more it was weighted in Blokur’s charts.

Songwriters were also ranked according to their share of each song. In the case of ‘Dance Monkey’, Watson has a 100% writing credit for the earworm that catapulted her to fame.

According to Blokur, Tones And I beat Roddy Ricch at #2 and Finneas O’Connell at #3.

Other artists to rank in the Top 10 of 2020 included Drake (#4), Lil Baby (#5), Billie Eilish (#6), OZ (#7), Ed Sheeran (#8), Lewis Capaldi (#9) and Pop Smoke (#10).

News of Tones And I’s achievement comes just weeks ahead of the one-time busker’s plans to release her debut album Welcome To The Madhouse on July 16.

It was to have been released in the third quarter of 2020 but the performer wanted to add newer songs penned during the many weeks of COVID lockdowns.

“I’ve taken the time to just really make sure it’s what I want, and I want to add more music to the album,” Watson said during a virtual press conference last spring.

“It will be my first ever album, so I really want to make sure I’m proud of it.”

In the UK, Tones And I lands her second Top 40 hit with ‘Fly Away’, following the 11 week chart reign by ‘Dance Monkey’ – the longest-running #1 by a female artist in UK chart history.

According to the Official Charts Company, which compiles the UK charts, the acapella intro of ‘Fly Away’ is being used to soundtrack uplifting, inspirational and motivational clips on TikTok, where it has been used almost 100,000 times since its release.