Blokur was founded in 2017 by Phil Barry, a former recording artist who was inspired to build a platform that would help address the issue of artists not being paid effectively. The platform uses data engineering and subgraph matching technology to link song recordings with their underlying compositions. That tackles issues related to the misrepresentation of song data, difficulties in reporting music use, and the identification of music licensing coverage.[4]
Blokur released a 2020 Songwriters' Review, a report that calculates the best-performing global songwriters based on their shares in the top-streamed songs. Tones and I topped the chart as the sole writer of her hit song "Dance Monkey".[5][6][7] The second installment of the report, the 2021 Songwriters' Review, was sponsored by The Ivors Academy. That year, Olivia Rodrigo was named the top songwriter following the commercial success of her album Sour.[8][9][10]
