How to Pick a Killer Theme Song for Your Podcast

This is Grow the Show, and in this quick hit episode, we are going to talk about podcast theme music. Now, through the course of serving more than 15,000 podcasters via Grow the Show, I have heard a lot of podcast theme songs. And let me tell you, I have noticed some patterns, both in the theme songs that really don't work and the theme songs that really do, that are memorable, that define a show's identity and that serve a podcast really, really well. And so today, let's talk about what makes a great podcast theme song and what you can do to make it so that your podcast theme song is awesome and unique. Now overall, when it comes to having a great podcast theme song, what I recommend is making sure that your theme music has three characteristics. Number one, that it has a recognizable motif, meaning some sort of melody or percussion or something that is really, really short and recognizable. So for me, for the Grow the Show podcast, it's, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Right. So if you hear that, you know you're listening to or watching something from Grow the Show. And really, if you pick virtually any podcast that is your favorite, there's a good chance that they have some sort of recognizable motif. Something that gets stuck in your head and that you can recognize and know what it is immediately. second characteristic of a great theme song is that it is loopable. What's tough is when you have a theme song that is totally not loopable and so you're kind of stuck playing all three and a half minutes of it and so if you really really want to get creative with how you use your podcast theme song you get a podcast theme song that's really adaptable and kind of loopable so that it's you can either use it in a really short way for just a couple of seconds or you know like a 30 second version and you can even make it like a you know two minute version if you have to and then the third characteristic that I recommend in every podcast theme song is some sort of outro sting meaning when the theme song ends there's some sort of percussion or sound that's really distinct and makes it sound like the theme song is over and it ends and it's a great transition out of the podcast theme song into your episode until let me play for you the two theme songs that have served me really well for my two podcasts both of which have gotten more than a hundred thousand downloads made more than a hundred thousand dollars monetize the second one has generated more than a million dollars for my business so these theme songs have been real good to me and so the first one I'll play is the one from Philly who which was my first show that I ever had it was about my home city of Philadelphia and the theme song sounded like this and so that's a really really really recognizable motif meaning anytime the show began you would hear that right to the right and then I would never do voiceovers until that was complete so that was the recognizable motif the song was really loopable so it had several different p-mix and match depending on how long I wanted the theme song to play and then this song has a really really distinct outro sting right so every time the theme song ended we have that at the end right obviously it's not good me singing but with the really defined beginning of the song and really really great outro sting I was able to use the theme song really really really creatively I could take that interesting use it by itself take the outro it was just awesome here's the problem with this theme song though and where I got bit this is a totally free song that is available via a creative commons license it was created and composed by Lee Roosevelt which he's a great composer he's got tons and tons of free podcast music online and since I was just getting started as a podcaster I had no budget it was good to have a free song but the problem with using royalty free music is this anybody else can use it so it wasn't too long until Philly who started to generate some buzz and in that song started to get recognized as the theme song of Philly who and that was great all in good until I heard from a Philly who listener and said hey I heard I heard the Philly who theme song on another podcast and I was kind of like oh you know I figured that would happen soon what was the show and they said it's a podcast about circumcision and I was like oh my gosh so sure enough a podcast episode about circumcision used the Philly who theme song and people who were Philly who listeners heard it so from there I was like oh my gosh next time I have a podcast I am not using royalty free music now royalty free music is free for you to use there's plenty of websites where you can go get royalty free music and so if you're a podcaster that has literally zero budget totally fine you can use that but you will probably if your show grows the way you want it to you're gonna run into this issue and so for that reason I actually do recommend if you have the budget and it doesn't break the bank I do recommend paying for music that you can have forever now there are indeed other websites where you can buy music you can pay like 25 bucks maybe 50 bucks for music that's available to everyone but that music again is available to anybody who pays the 25 or 50 bucks so you'll run into the same problem where two people bought the same song and they're using the same music so for that reason once I launched my second show Grow the Show I said okay this time I'm gonna spend a couple hundred bucks and I'm gonna commission my own theme song so that I know it's mine it's unique I own the copyright to it nobody else can use it and I can make it sound the way I want it to sound and I own it forever it's my theme song and so that theme song if you've listened to the Grow the Show podcast ever before it sounds like this right so it's got that really distinct intro and then likewise we use the same sort of thing for the outro the song and the middle of the song is very very very loopable it's easy to do a voiceover over it the sounds are not distracting there's not too much going on and so overall it's a really great theme song that I love personally and I hope you like it too so how can you get a podcast theme song that has a really recognizable motif that has a great outro sting and that is very very lovable so that you can use it in many many different ways well you can absolutely like I said use royalty free music there's nothing wrong with that there are big shows that use royalty free music so I am not telling you that you have to commission podcast music I'm not saying that and if you're just starting out I recommend that you focus on achieving podcast market fit and really really you know making sure that your show is toned because buying theme music is definitely not a necessity but if you do plan for the show to be a business if you plan to have longevity behind it and you know that you want to be a podcaster for a long time then I do recommend commissioning your own custom theme song and so if you want to do that if you want to have your own custom theme song that you can own and use forever here's how you do it number one think about the style of music that you think would fit your show well now I actually don't recommend just picking whatever your favorite style of music is because that might not be a good match for the show for example my favorite style of music is electronic music I love house music I love dubstep I love base house I love all the houses all the dubstep all the melodics all that stuff I listen to tons of electronic music but I also didn't think electronic music would be a great fit for a podcast theme song so I knew when I commissioned the grow the show theme song that I wanted to be you know normal instruments and not the crazy boot boot music like I listen to so number one think about the style of music that you think would fit your show well number two I recommend you listen to other shows that are kind of the style that you like and and have theme music that you like and observe what you notice about it observe what you like about it what really gives it the vibe that think that you think would fit your show and take note of that and then number three hire a musician who is a producer who can help craft your theme music for you you want to hire them you want to tell them make sure that they can provide to you a couple versions so a short version a longer version that intro sting and have an outro sting that's recognizable and even if you want to get fancy have them provide to you the stems so that you can you know mix and match what different instruments you can play at a given time that's pretty advanced stuff so if you don't know what stems mean then don't worry about them but overall you want to hire that producer who you know is going to be able to listen to what you want for your show make that vision reality and then deliver to you the files that you need for your theme music and of course is willing to make it so that you own that creation and so it's pretty simple not that required and so you can totally hire just a musician or producer friend if you want or if you're a producer you can make it yourself however if you do want to go with somebody who is proven I'm actually excited to say that my producer friend is making himself available to you the Grow the Show listener if you would like to have a theme song for your podcast commissioned this is somebody who is a professional full-time music producer he has produced songs that have gotten combined over 50 million streams on Spotify he's produced video game music he's produced for artists like Lily Allen and Mac Miller and Black Bear and Marshmallow really really really talented guy he usually charges thousands of dollars per hour but I've negotiated for you the Grow the Show listener a discount rate and so totally you know don't have to do it but I just wanted to make that available to you if you do want a commission a theme song like I did so if you are interested in that the link is in the show notes to get in contact with Jake he's awesome and if you do want to commission the music definitely fill out that form and he'll get in contact with you but if not again you can totally go with somebody that you know or you could you know go with online available music is fine too I did it for my first show no worries but I do recommend having a custom theme song produced for you and commission for you so that you can totally customize it and totally own it it can be the unique sound and identifier of your show so this episode is again something that is not mission critical to the growth and monetization of your show however I can say from experience that it is really nice to have a custom theme song that you really love so I wanted to make this information and that contact available to you today and so that is it for this quick hit episode of Grow the Show there's a little bit of a fun and lighter grow the show today hopefully you enjoyed and if you do wind up getting theme music commissioned posted in the Grow the Show Facebook group we'd love to hear what you come up with because there's just so many fun different theme songs around so anyway that's it for me thank you so much and I'll see you in next weeks episode