Image Credit: Rocket Songs

Take your pick of hidden gems from some of the top music industry songwriters, publishers, and producers on new online music marketplace Rocket Songs.

New hub Rocket Songs lets music artists listen to and select original songs and tracks from an online music marketplace curated by the best in the song publishing business. The artist can license the chosen song however they’d like and put their own stamp on it, ready to record, perform, share, stream, and sell their version of the song everywhere from YouTube to Spotify.

It’s the first marketplace of its kind to legally offer songs and tracks from songwriters who have written for artists like Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Eminem, Celine Dion and Willie Nelson. Rocket Songs was born from conversations between now-CEO John Cesario, songwriter and music tech entrepreneur, and President & Creative Director Jonathan Stone, previously music publishing executive at Sony ATV and Windswept Pacific. They noted that even successful songwriters hardly ever see more than 10% of a song make it through to the final recording. The rest of the song languishes in a publisher’s vault.

In 2017 Cesario and Stone joined forces and pulled together a high-quality collection of these wasted original songs from songwriters and publishers, building a platform so the creators can receive revenue from their work, while also providing a resource for artists to gain access to professionally written songs.

Stone said:

One key element of our business is that if you are a recording or performing artist, and you can’t write and record a song from scratch, we offer you not just the composition but the entire music bed. If you hear a song in our catalog and you think you can sing the heck out of it, you can purchase an upfront license, download the music bed from our website into your DAW, and record your own voice on it.

Jonathan Stone, President & Creative Director of Rocket Songs

Interested music artists can search the Rocket Songs site by factors like tempo and mood until they find a song that fits their requirements. Once they’ve chosen a song, the level of license available is completely up to the artist. That might be just the file of the song, with all the vocals and the lyrics; or the song and track, which is the song with vocals plus a file of the instrumental backing tracks and the lyrics. Alternatively the artist can choose to license the songs and its stems, which are the individual multi-track audio files of the song, allowing complete control over every instrument. The final option is an exclusive license, which removes the song from the Rocket Songs site and limits other future recordings.

After paying a licensing fee, the song is the artist’s to record however they like. The songs all fall under a single license, and under the same agreement artists can adjust the melody, change the genre, translate the lyrics. The artist owns any recording or videos created. And artist and songwriter share future royalties – so both benefit.

Ezra Greene, Rocket Song’s head of Marketing and Product said:

We have streamlined every part of the process to make it as easy as possible for an emerging artist to get an original song and make it their own. We are about access and empowerment. Allowing musicians unprecedented access to troves of songs, and empowering them to find ones they are passionate about.

Ezra Greene, head of Marketing and Product at Rocket Songs

The early response from artists around the world has been positive, and Rocket Songs’ users already span 125 countries.