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Best Music For Political Campaigns
Posted: June 22, 2020 | Updated: March 21, 2024

Looking for music to use in political campaigns?

Music is widely used in political campaigns and politics commercials to inspire, motivate, and energize the audience.

This post explains the importance of complying with copyright law, covers some basic music licensing tips, and provides ideas for what type of music works best for certain campaigns

At the end you will a hand picked playlist of our best music for political ads and videos.

Mik TunePocket Composer

Hi, I’m Mik, one of TunePocket music composers. I put together few tips to help you find great music you can legally use in political campaign videos. Read my music licensing tips below or jump straight to top 10 music tracks for political campaigns playlist.

No time to read our music licensing tips? Jump straight to the top 10 playlist.

Can I just use any music in a political campaign?

Unfortunately, no. Any use of music for promotional or advertisement purposes requires careful planning, including securing the appropriate permissions.

This is especially important when promoting political candidates in the public spotlight. After all, you don’t want your campaign compromised by unnecessary negative publicity resulting from breaking the copyright law.

Your obligation as a campaign manager or marketing coordinator is to legally license any music you use, in order to protect the campaign from legal claims from artists, music labels, and performance societies.

Let’s see what permissions you might need to secure before you can safely use music in your political campaign:

When using music in videos and commercials

For using music in videos and commercials you need to obtain synchronization license from the artist’s publisher and the master recording license from the recording label.

When using music in public

If you want to broadcast the music in any public place, radio, or TV (including broadcasting the videos or commercials containing the music) you need may to obtain a separate public performance license from a performance rights organization (PRO).

Most commercial TV networks, radio stations, and venues already have blanket licenses from major PROs that allow them to legally broadcast music. However, this will be your responsibility to check that any network, venue, or Web site that transmits your video has the proper performance license.

When using famous songs

The artists and songwriters can still take legal action against the campaign, even if you have the public performance license.

Some common causes for litigation include false endorsement (if the artist opposes campaign’s political views) and unauthorized use of trademark (band’s name) or artist’s image.

Considering the strongly polarizing political views of today, many artists chose to ban any usage of their music in political and election campaign ads.

Just to name a few, Dr Dre, Adele, Journey, M People, Friendly Fires have rejected politicians using their music.

Therefore, I strongly advise that you contact artist’s management prior to using any famous songs for any campaign purposes.

Sounds complicated?

At this point you might be wondering if there is an easier way to license music for political campaigns.

After all, chasing down the publishers and recording labels, negotiating licensing contracts, and not being able to efficiently plan your budget in advance can be a big issue.

Unless you are firmly determined to use famous songs, your next best alternative is to license music from a music library.

Music libraries make music specifically for commercials and promotional videos and usually offer the easy way to license and download their music online.

Many libraries also disclose the PRO affiliation of their artists. This is important if you want to avoid purchasing a separate public performance license for public events or for broadcasting the commercials.

Quick Tip: Use music by non-affiliated composers to avoid purchasing the public performance license. For example, here is a collection on non-PRO music on TunePocket.

Libraries typically carry large catalogs of music in many genres and styles, so you may feel overwhelmed presented with so many choices.

Let’s talk about choosing the best soundtracks for you political campaign videos.

Download free infographic:

How to license music for political campaigns

How to choose best music for your campaign video

First of all, decide what kind of emotional response you want your video to evoke.

Matthew Nicholl, the dean of professional writing and music technology department at Berklee School of Music identified three major types of background music commonly used in political campaign commercials:

1. Inspiring, motivational, and uplifting music

Uplifting inspirational music helps to motivate your audience. The main emotional message here is “Yes, we can do it!”.

I also would like to mention another music category that can work very well in motivational political videos or during live events – patriotic music.

Patriotic music is commonly used in media and politics to evoke the feeling of national pride, unity, and collective identity.

2. Happy, positive, and comforting music

Happy and positive music helps to invoke the feeling of comfort and trust. The main emotional message is “Don’t worry, you are in good hands!”.

3. Sad, dark, or somber

Using sad or somber music will make your audience feel anxious and distressed. Use dark music when discussing serious issues or when bringing attention to something that isn’t good. The main emotional message is “There is a serious problem!”.

Anxious soundtracks are most commonly used in attack ads to bring attention to the weaknesses of the opposing candidate.

Download free infographic:

3 types of background music commonly used in political campaigns

Top 10 music tracks for political campaigns

Having hard time choosing the best soundtrack for your campaign video? With TunePocket unlimited royalty free music subscription, you can get unlimited access to thousands of music tracks, loops, and sound effects.

Don’t need the unlimited subscription? Download any 5 songs with affordable Pay As You Go Membership.

Tracklist:

  • Uplifting orchestral royalty free rock music theme with grand, confident, inspirational feel for corporate promotional video, motivational presentation, political campaign advertisement, documentary, film, and commercial business use.
  • Epic cinematic orchestra score with inspirational and heroic feel for storytelling promotional video, documentary, game, commercial business use.

    This track is one of our Top 20 Most Popular Royalty Free Music downloads.

  • Inspirational royalty free acoustic indie pop music with uplifting emotional build up feel for inspiring storytelling video, motivational film, documentary, passionate vlog, and commercial business use.
  • Uplifting instrumental pop rock music with strong motivational feel for corporate and motivational videos, presentations, events, and commercial business use.
  • Emotional piano and strings music with strong uplifting epic inspirational feel for promotional marketing videos, presentations, events, film, documentary, and commercial business use.
  • Gentle acoustic guitar and piano royalty free acoustic pop music cue with uplifting romantic feel for wedding video, sentimental vlog, love film, and commercial business use.
  • Epic royalty free alternative rock music with powerful thunderous drums and aggressive guitar riffs for strong motivational video, edgy film, hard documentary, and commercial business use. Download unlimited royalty free motivational rock music for videos.
  • Soft acoustic royalty free indie folk music with warm sentimental feel for uplifting video, romantic vlog or podcast, wedding film, and commercial business use.
  • Epic cinematic orchestra score with heroic grand feel for inspirational video, game, film, documentary, and commercial business use.
  • Positive royalty free acoustic pop background instrumental music with warm comforting feel for product review video, promotional video, infomercial, corporate or training vlog, presentation, on-hold music, event, real estate video, and commercial business use.

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4 comments

  1. Anton on March 22, 2023

    When choosing music for election or political campaigns, is this better to use stock (or royalty free) music or negotiate the rights with the artist?

    • Support on March 23, 2023

      Both options are good choices. The main consideration when using well known songs in any political content are the license cost (the more famous is the artists, the more expensive it may get) and the political views of the artist. Some artists may reject your request flat out just because they don’t share your views. Stock / royalty free music is much easier (and cheaper) to license (and in some cases works just as well), however, it’s not instantly recognizable as a famous song would be.

  2. Russell J on March 22, 2023

    What genre of music works best for political campaign videos or ads?

    • Support on March 22, 2023

      When it comes to political ads and videos, we generally recommend focusing on the mood, rather than a specific music genre. Think what feelings you want your campaign ad to evoke? What is the message? Then choose the music that evokes such feelings and supports the message.

      However, here are some tips if you prefer choosing the music by genre:

      Patriotic music such as anthems, marches, and classical compositions that evoke a sense of national pride, can be effective in conveying a message of unity and strength.
      Pop and rock music can energize and motivate the supporters.
      Alternative or rap music can be effective in campaigns that focus on issues of social justice and equality.

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