The Best Royalty Free Music for YouTube Shorts | Boost Engagement with our Top 10 Tracks & Playlists
Jourdan Aldredge
Aug 20, 2024
While YouTube is still the most popular and important online video sharing platform in the world, its market dominance has been challenged in recent years. TikTok has quickly become a major challenger to YouTube, at least in its short-form video content format.
As TikTok has grown and given voice to a whole new generation of content creators, major tech companies like Google (which owns YouTube) and Facebook (which owns Instagram) have scrambled to create versions of the short-form style.
YouTube Shorts was launched in 2021 and—with YouTube’s brand and reach behind it—has grown its own audience as a rival to TikTok and another avenue for creators to share their content.
So, regardless of your brand loyalty, if you're interested in uploading short-form video content on YouTube Shorts, you’ll still need to understand how YouTube Shorts works with copyrighted music.
Plus, if you truly want your content to stand out in this vast ocean of short-form videos, we have some of the best royalty free music for YouTube Shorts to share with you, to protect your content and give it the best chance to succeed on YouTube’s short-form platform.
10 top royalty free songs for YouTube Shorts
If you’re looking for music to use in your short-form content, we have thousands of tracks that would be perfect for your videos. While you can always browse through our full royalty free music library, we’re also here to give you some hand-selected songs ideal for YouTube Shorts.
Here are some of our top picks for the best royalty free songs for YouTube Shorts. We have included some info about each track, including descriptions, BPM, and key, in case those are some factors in your music selection discussions for your videos.
1. Get Flipped Or Die Trying by Sam Barsh
Description: A low-energy, hip-hop song best described as chill and fun. Bass and bass guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 84
Key: E Minor
Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as reflective and romantic. Synth and bass are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 111
Key: A Minor
3. Good Tonight by Cira Grandi
Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as fun and happy. Synth and bass are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 120
Key: C Major
Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as fun and happy. Bass and bass guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 109
Key: B Major
Description: A medium-energy, hip-hop song best described as angry and fun. Bass and synth bass are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 150
Key: A Major
6. Celestial Drift by Dr. Delight
Description: A medium-energy rock song best described as fun and happy. Bass and synth are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 110
Key: D Major
Description: A very low-energy, acoustic song best described as calm and romantic. Guitar and acoustic guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 108
Key: F Major
Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as fun and happy. Synth and bass are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 112
Key: Db/C# Major
9. Flowing Tranquility by Alsever Lake
Description: A very low-energy, ambient song best described as calm and reflective. Synth and ambient tones are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 100
Key: A Major
Description: A low-energy pop song best described as reflective and calm. Electric guitar and guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
BPM: 80
Key: E Major
As mentioned above, these are just our top picks. If you’d like to dive deeper into our music catalogs here at Soundstripe, you can check out our songs on our Soundstripe app.
What is royalty free music?
If you’re unfamiliar with the term “royalty free,” which we’ve been using to describe the music we offer here at Soundstripe, let’s quickly define what it means and go over some basics about how music licensing and copyrights work.
First, it’s important to understand that all songs have copyrights that extend to the composing and recording artists. If you’d like to use any music in any content or videos, you’ll need to legally license the use of the music for your projects and fairly compensate the artists themselves.
To help with this music licensing process, companies like Soundstripe offer fully cleared music for subscribers to use in their videos and content. The artists have been compensated, and as a Soundstripe subscriber, you can use any song or sound effect in our libraries in your videos without paying additional royalties or fees—hence the “royalty free” term.
If you’re still looking for more information, here’s a full guide to what royalty free music is and how it works, as well as some other helpful resources for understanding the nuances of copyrighted music and how to license music for video.
Our top playlists for royalty free music for YouTube Shorts
With the right royalty free music providing the background for your YouTube Shorts, you’ll be in a great position to create engaging content that will help grow your channel and build your brand.
Still, the real trick here isn’t just finding the right type of license for your music but also finding the right music for you and your videos. So, let’s give you more of our curated playlists, which have even more high-quality, royalty-free songs for you to use in your content.
Description: A collection of the best vocal Pop tracks from the Soundstripe catalog.
Description: Whether you want to stay in tune with the freshest stuff in Soundstripe's library or just want a playlist handpicked by people with superb taste, you’re in the right place.
Description: Songs that incorporate traditional sonic elements from all around the globe.
Description: Low-energy Lo-Fi style background music for studying and other deep focus work.
Description: Vlog underscore for your next lifestyle content drop.
Of course, keep in mind that these are just a handful of recommended playlists for your YouTube Shorts content. We have plenty more playlists and tracks to share with you on our app, which you can check out here.
Tips for adding music to your YouTube Shorts
Once you’ve selected the best song (or songs depending on how long you plan for your video to be) for your YouTube Shorts content, here are some quick and helpful tips to keep in mind.
- Consider your YouTube Shorts more as TikTok videos than your usual longer-form YouTube videos.
- Consider adding royalty free sound effects to help fill out your videos.
- Experiment with different song stems, which can be great for intros and outros.
- Don’t limit yourself to just one track per video; consider trying different songs for different parts of your YouTube Shorts.
- Consider re-sharing your YouTube Shorts on other short-form social platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels.
With these tips—and Soundstripe’s high-quality royalty free music—providing the bedrock to your YouTube Shorts, you’re now in a great position to create engaging content to help launch your brand and grow your channel.