Instead of concentrating on the performing artists that everyone knows, The British Songwriting Awards focuses on the less well known creators and songwriting talent behind the songs. We analyse the charts and rank songwriters based on total distribution including streams, downloads, vinyl sales, CD sales and video streams in the UK during the preceding year. We collate and analysis figures from many leading sources including Billboard, The Official Charts Company, Rolling Stone and other major music industry bodies. Below is a top ten list of songs and their writers from last year. A very noticeable trend in 2023 is that all the top songs had songwriting teams and co-writers involved. All top ten songs were written by teams of up to 5 songwriters and none, not even those strongly associated with a solo artist, for example Harry Styles, were written by one songwriter or solely by the artists themselves.

1.  FLOWERS
Written by:  Michael Pollack, Gregory “Aldae” Hein, Miley Cyrus
Performed by: Miley Cyrus

2 SPRINTER
Written by:  Oakley Neil Caesar-Su, David Orobosa Omoregie, James Olaloye, Jo Caleb, Jonny Leslie
Performed by:  Dave & Central Cee

3 ESCAPISM
Written by:  Rachel Keen, Mike Sabath, Danielle Balbuena
Performed by: Raye (Feat 070 Shake)

4. ANTI-HERO
Written by:  Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff
Performed by: Taylor Swift

5. MIRACLE
Written by: Ellie Goulding, Adam Wiles, Matthew James Burns, Pablo Bowman, Peter Rycroft
Performed by: Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding

6. CALM DOWN
Written by:  Divine Ikubor, Andre Vibez, Michael Hunter
Performed by:  Rema

7. KILL BILL
Written by: Solána Rowe, Rob Bisel, Carter Lang
Performed by: SZA

8. BOY'S A LIAR
Written by: Victoria Walker, Alexander Crossan
Performed by: Pink Pantheress

9. AS IT WAS
Written by: Harry Styles, Thomas Hull, Tyler Johnson
Performed by: Harry Styles

10. PEOPLE
Written by: Libianca Kenzonkinboum Fonji, Orhue Moses Odia
Performed by: Libianca

The song is taken from Miley’s chart-topping studio album Endless Summer Vacation. It grew out of a songwriting exercise  based around the word "Flowers" that took place while Miley Cyrus and co-writers Michael Pollack and Gregory “Aldae” Hein were working on songs for the album. According to Michael Pollack, in an interview with Billboard Magazine, the song started life as a break up anthem but it morphed into a strong "independent roar" when his co-writers suggested a lyric change. “I remember singing the tagline with the lyric "But I could never love me like you can,’ and Miley and Greg wanted to flip the script and say, ‘Yeah, I can love me better than you can.’ Once we had the tagline established, the rest of the lyric came rather quickly.”

The initial demo version of the song was a bare and stripped-back ballad, with only Cyrus singing and Pollack playing the Rhodes piano. It evolved into an uptempo song and its final version the track was produced by Tyler Johnson and Kid Harpoon.

Posthumous win for George Michael

The 2024 UK Songwriter Award posthumously goes to George Michael for his Wham! song Last Christmas. The track recently made UK chart history when it finally became the Official Christmas Number 1 single 39 years after its first release.

Despite hitting the coveted Christmas Number One slot Michael's song was ranked at only 18th overall for the year, based on total UK streams, downloads, vinyl and CD sales by the Official Charts Company. But analysis of the data and statistics shows that Last Christmas was the highest placed song by a solo British songwriter in terms of total distribution for the year, beating all other solo writers. All songs in first 17 places above Last Christmas were either written by non-UK (mostly US) songwriters or by a songwriting team. Even highly placed UK performing singer-songwriter artists such as Raye, who was third overall in distribution terms for her single Escapism, relied on co writers for their chart hits.

Last Christmas was originally a hit for Wham! in 1984 spending five consecutive weeks at number two in the UK Singles Chart. It was held off the top Christmas spot that year by Band Aid's Do They Know Its Christmas? on which Micheal also performed, and he further supported the Band Aid cause by donating all of his proceeds from Last Christmas to Ethiopian Famine Relief. The original Wham! track was recorded in the summer in a studio covered in Christmas decorations to set the mood. George Michael wrote, performed, produced and played every instrument on the track. It became a regular annual Christmas favourite and the original 1984 recording has been in the UK charts many times in subsequent years reaching number one for the first time in January 2021 and it hit number one again in 2022. The song has also been covered by many other well known artists including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Billie Piper.

BUTTERFLIES - A SONG FOR KYLIE

As an introduction for the launch of next year's New Talent section we are showcasing this winning song, Butterflies, from the last UK Songwriting Contest. The song was written with Kylie Minogue in mind by a team of new up-and-coming songwriters: Rob Agostini, Holly Berry, Kevin Charge, Maria Kheyfets and Claire Robinson. The writers collaborated together online, working to develop a song in the same style as Kylie's recent chart successes. The result was the track Butterflies. One of the songwriting team, UK songwriter Holly Berry, decided to enter the song into the Songs For Major Artists section of The UK Songwriting Contest. This turned out to be a good decision as the top music industry judges from the UKSC selected Butterflies as the winner of the Major Artist category.  We have highlighted this song here, chosen from the outstanding winning songs from the UKSC which can be seen and heard here. In the 2025 British Songwriting Awards the UKSC will provide all New Talent nominees and Winners. If you are a new songwriter interested in taking part in the New Talent selections submissions should be officially made through the UKSC.

Kylie had great success in this year´s famous "BRIT Awards" where she received the Global Icon Award in recognition of her 30 plus years career spanning across five decades. She is the only female artist to score a number one album in five consecutive decades in the UK. Do you think this new song from a team of unsigned and yet-to-be-discovered songwriters would be suitable for Kylie? Listen to the track below (or visit the UKSC here).