Since writing my book on songwriting for the Film & TV market, I’ve been studying the kinds of songs that do well in commercials, TV shows, and movies. Recently I began putting many of them into a Spotify playlist and I’d love to share it with you. I’m adding to it all the time.
All of these songs have been used in prime time TV dramas, national TV commercials, or films. I tend to favor the kinds of songs that can be recorded in a home studio or relatively inexpensively in a pro studio. There are even a couple of recognizable hit songs here, but in each case the song was introduced to the public via television or film.
You can click here to go to the complete playlist on Spotify. Or just go to your Spotify app and search for Film and TV Songwriting.
Listening to this playlist will give you a good idea of some of the kinds of songs that work well as underscore in TV dramas and commercials, adding energy, emotion and atmosphere. Of course, many more types of songs are used, including Rock, Hip Hop, Blues, and Country. This is just a place to get started. If you’d like to learn more about film and TV songwriting, here’s a post that will give you some tips.