We are a leading independent creative music agency specialising in music supervision for brands, tv advertising, digital content and all moving image. We were founded in 2005 by Kate Young, and our 20+ years collective experience has won us clients such as Nike, O2, McLaren, Jaguar Land Rover, Guinness, Wieden & Kennedy, VCCP, Ogilvy, BBH and JWT.
Our Own Creative Space
Having recently moved out of our native Soho, we are now based in the creative hub that is Clerkenwell. Here, we have built our own 7000 sq ft. recording studio complex, The Gin Factory, which plays home to us and a bunch of commercial artists, producers and songwriters.
Music Lovers. Music Creators. Music Experts.
Our speciality is connecting music with brands: whatever the project, our award winning team can help source, create and develop a creative and comprehensive music strategy.
Welcome to the Gin Factory
Recently renovated from a derelict gin distillery, The Gin Factory is now home to Soho Music and 12 record producers, song writers and commercial artists.
The Gin Factory, is our own 7000 sq ft commercial recording studio complex set in the heart of Clerkenwell, London. It was converted from an old gin distillery, and now plays home to us and a bunch of talented record producers, song writers and commercial artists.
Publishing
In 2016, we announced Soho Music Publishing – a new and exciting venture with Imagem Creative Services.
Imagem will be acting as administrator for Soho Music Publishing’s ever-growing catalogue, which has already seen the signing of all future rights of iconic producer and writer, MJ Cole.
This exciting partnership means that we can sign single song assignments specifically for sync usage, as well as offer a full collection service on behalf of our writers.
Music Artist Partnerships
M.A.P (Music Artist Partnerships) is our new talent division partnering iconic and developing music artists with brands. We design and execute full production on concepts and all scales of music strategies.
We are fully independent which gives us a maximum range of independent, major record labels, management companies and independent artists allowing us to work on any project with music talent at any level.
We invest heavily in A&R resources and alongside our management team and state of the art recording studios, we have unrivalled access to the most varied and sought after talent around.
We have supervised and executed music partnerships for brands including O2 / Size? / Playstation / Jamie Oliver. These have ranged from full international tour sponsorships, gaming curation and TV commercials to experiential and online content. We carry full global indemnity.
Creative Music Development
At Soho Music, our aim is simple: to connect amazing music with brands.
Our creative development team can oversee, design and deliver original musical ideas & music research to any brief or budget. We handle the creative process from start to finish.
From interpreting briefs to developing a musical strategy, we can help to define, discover and design your perfect sound.
We also have a business partnership with our friends over at Shazam, to assist with maximising brand and band exposure, as well as measuring the success of campaigns and qualifying good creative decisions prior to roll out.
Licensing
Here at Soho Music, we are experts in designing, negotiating and implementing all aspects of music licensing for advertising, broadcast and interactive content.
We pride ourselves on a quick and effective approach to music licensing, and our great relationships with major and indie rights holders means that your negotiations are in the best possible hands.
For your peace of mind, we take care of all paperwork and carry full global professional indemnity.
Composition and Production
Our fully independent status means that at Soho Music, we can work from a limitless pool of talented composers and producers to deliver a truly bespoke service.
This means we can find you the perfect person for your project, without ever compromising creativity.
We handle all stages of production – from tonal references, to creative treatments, briefing, development and licensing.
Music Management
MJ Cole is a standard bearer of dance music. A figurehead known for his unrivalled quality and the timelessness of his productions. Along the way he’s collected MOBOs and Mercury Award nominations alongside collaborating with the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Mary J Blige. He is working on a new album for 2019.
20-year-old Mathilda Homer is one of the most exciting talents in the UK. Her contemporary soul music is formed by blending traditional influences with modern, creative production.
Press Releases
Judging Panels
Global Award Winners
Soho Music has won various awards for best use of existing music and composed music for TV advertising and online campaigns for Cannes Lions, Music & Sound Awards and the Music Week Awards, where Kate Young was also nominated as Music Supervisor of the Year.
5th March 2018
Soho Music and its founder Kate Young are already feeling the benefits of the recently formed UK & European Guild of Music Supervisors, writes Alex Reeves
No prizes for guessing what Soho Music’s building, called ‘The Gin Factory’, began its life as. While it was first used to distil gallons of ‘mother’s ruin’, nowadays it pumps out gallons of music from its 12 studios – both for general entertainment and to commercial briefs.
Five years ago, when Soho Music’s founder Kate Young discovered the looming brick building it had laid empty for years. Despite the name of her business, the possibilities of the Clerkenwell property were too attractive to turn down. “We brought it back to life,” she says. “From electricity to plumbing, water, everything – so it was a completely derelict shell.” They created a bespoke set of studios and offices – the perfect environment for the creative community Kate wanted to encourage.
“It’s a really great creative flow for what we do,” she says. “The commercial recording studios have a massive effect on how we’re able to operate.” With space for so many producers, songwriters and artists to be working in the same building at once, many of whom work on commercial hits, there’s often a lot of talent concentrated in the old distillery.
Kate feels one of their biggest strengths is the calibre of Oscar / Grammy / Brit / Mercury and Ivor Novello award winning record producers and songwriters who permanently reside in the studio complex – one writer in particular even won an Oscar for the James Bond theme song he wrote in 2016. “When you’ve got that level of talent under our roof, where else in the world would you want to be as a music supervision company? It’s a very privileged position for us to be set among.”
2017 was a massive year for Soho Music. But one of the most momentous events of the year for Kate was the opening in April of the UK & European Guild of Music Supervisors – a body dedicated to raising awareness and understanding of the role of the music supervisor within the entertainment and media industries.
“The inception of the European Guild – a chapter of the one that previously existed in the USA – means there is now a central body that can help validate supervisors in our profession and offer guidelines on certain topics, whilst being able to effectively channel important information amongst everyone in the industry,” she says. “The learning and education aspects are something the guild is passionate about, offering masterclasses covering in-depth topics within supervision.”
Kate was invited to join the advisory board and she accepted without hesitation.
The Guild is already helping to inspire better working relationships with rights holders, supervisors, agencies, film houses etc, she feels. “There seems to be an increased sense of community and collaboration and bringing dialogue and better relationships to what has previously been quite an insular world. Realising that a lot of the issues you are facing are universal and common amongst the other supervisors and supervision agencies.”
The Guild supports the supervisor community to have a united voice and brings clarity to recent changes in legislation, especially relating to the AFM-modified Sound Recording Labor Agreement as well as SAG-AFTRA and other industry issues that sound boring but are vital to get your head around if they affect your business.
These issues need expertise and community, and Kate is grateful to finally have these resources in the form of the Guild, she says. “When everyone comes together it’s such a great opportunity to try to make a change and make a difference.”
The Guild has several aims in both the long a short term. “We want music supervision to be a career over here that is taken note of,” says Kate of the long-term goals. “In the US they’re starting to get traction. The Emmys now has a separate category for music supervisor. Susan Jacobs won the music supervision award for the TV series for ‘Big Little Lies’. It was brilliant – an amazingly well-curated piece of work. That’s what we want to try and build here.”
Education is also a key mission. The Guild is working to create masterclasses this year, with all the advisory members involved in teaching or curating the courses.
It’s something Kate’s really keen to get involved with because Soho Music runs masterclasses already with some of the key music colleges in the UK (Royal College of Music and previously the Royal Academy). “We give students a piece of work, give them a brief, pretend as though it’s a real-time project,” says Kate. “It’s the opportunity for people who want to go into scoring, whether it’s TV or film, to have more of a real-life experience with it. So they submit work and we discuss their creative. We also provide general masterclasses on the pitfalls and highlights of working in our industry. Which I think people find helpful.”
Kate feels strongly about the kind of skills music supervisors of the future need. “Music supervision has to be a 360 role,” she says. “You have to be able to work not just creatively (sourcing the right music to work with a selected piece of film / game or TV commercial), but understand budget restrictions, how production is run, how to licence a piece of music, how rights holders work as well as key negotiation skills. All those things make a supervisor. One of the things we wanted to do on the masterclass particularly was to start having one dedicated to music licensing. Because it’s one of those things that if it goes wrong, it can be devastating to all parties involved. It puts everyone at risk and we’re trying to minimise this and get the best safeguarding in place for both clients and supervisors. The ability to share knowledge and help train people to give them a skill set that they can use from the ground up is invaluable as there isn’t currently a formal way of entering this profession.
“The masterclasses will be a very important part of the Guild. The main things are to help with education, improving professional standards and helping promote best practice.”
Almost a year on, Kate is beginning to feel the effects of the organisation on her business. “We definitely feel much more part of a community now, rather than isolated and purely competitive,” she says. The guild contains the key heads of the British music supervision community, whether they specialise in film, TV or commercials. “It’s really nice to feel supported within a competitive environment.”
Originally posted on lbbonline.com
A peek inside Soho Music’s studios
One of Soho Music’s recent pieces of work
O2 — Follow The Rabbit
→ See Full Project
13th October 2016
Pampers and UNICEF are celebrating the 11th year of their partnership to provide maternal vaccines with a cute spot detailing the amazing things that babies can achieve.
Agency Saatchi & Saatchi London and director Amanda Blue at Tantrum Films managed to capture some gorgeous footage for the spot’s storylines, including a baby laughing at its mom’s goofy dancing, a little boy making a businessman smile, a little baby girl whose presence stops an argument and another who lights up a frail old man in bed.
Set to an emotive piano cover of “Lean On” by Major Lazer by Soho Music and pianist/folk singer Jennifer Ann, it’s designed to tug at the heartstrings, and appeal to anyone who loves babies. The message is that not only can babies sort out the world just a little bit, but also just by wearing Pampers, they could help donations to UNICEF too.
There’s also a social media element: from now till December, every time a specially branded pack of Pampers is purchased or someone shares a photo of their own “amazing baby” on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #1photo1vaccine or #PamperUNICEF, Pampers will donate the cost of one vaccine to help UNICEF in the fight against maternal and newborn tetanus.
Originally posted on Creativity Online
By Alexandra Jardine. Published on Oct 12, 2016
Film Promotes Partnership to Donate Tetanus Vaccines
7th October 2016
Soho Music creates understated cover of Major Lazer’s ‘Lean On’ with Jennifer Ann
London-based music agency Soho Music was recently asked by Saatchi & Saatchi to find the perfect piece to accompany their emotional film for Pampers Unicef. Together with the wonderfully talented Jennifer Ann, they created a stripped back and heartwarming piano version of worldwide hit ‘Lean On’ by Major Lazer.
After working directly with Saatchi & Saatchi to find the track, Soho Music collaborated with classically trained pianist and folk singer Jennifer Ann to re-record a new version that would bring to light a new, emotive side to the track.
Speaking about the track, Jennifer Ann says, “I feel so honoured to have my music used in this beautiful advert – and for such an important cause. Soho Music are a really creative team and a pleasure to work with.“ Jennifer is currently writing and recording for her upcoming album, which will be out next year.
Originally posted on lbbonline.com
16th June 2016
Cannes Lions is without a doubt the most prestigious awarded advertising event of the year. 2016 is Cannes Lions 60th year and sees the introduction of Cannes Entertainment. A new and exciting two-day event where creative music agency Soho Music will be hosting a collaborative talk with music discovery tool Shazam where they’ll be hosting the session ‘Connecting Brands with Music’.
Like the evolving nature of advertising, the world of music supervision is always adapting. This unique partnership between a creative agency and a music data app strengthens the service that can be provided to brands and ad agencies alike. Cannes Entertainment provides the perfect platform for Soho Music and Shazam to voice the future of music in advertising. Cementing this vision Soho Music will be using the Very.com ‘Spring Fashion16’ campaign as a case study, which was the first campaign where Soho Music used Shazam’s unique data services to qualify their creative music research once the campaign had aired. Kate Young says: “As we enter the new digital era we are very excited about pushing the boundaries creatively by working with Shazam and amplifying the level of service we are able to offer our clients”.
Bridging the gap between music and brands, Soho Music’s MD Kate Young and New Business Director Marilou Bakkenist will be hosting alongside guest speaker Sam Woods Vice President of International Strategic Partnerships. The insightful ‘Connecting Brands with Music’ session will be talking place at the Entertainment Forum on Friday 24th June at 12pm.
Originally posted on lbbonline.com
25th April 2016
When the British chef Jamie Oliver launched a change.org petition to convince the G20 countries’ governments to provide schools with proper food and food education to fight hunger, obesity and diabetes, he turned to Soho Music to produce the campaign’s #FoodRevolutionDay Song.
Why? Because Soho Music isn’t just an independent music consultancy, but an all-inclusive creative music agency complete with an in-house recording studio and publishing company. Over the past eleven years, under the leadership of founder and CLIO Music juror Kate Young, Soho Music has become an operation equipped to support every step of the music process, as it sees everyone from artists to managers to labels and publishers coming through the door.
“Traditionally, other music companies might have an editing suite or a sound studio,” said Young. “But ours are residential recording studios, so we’ll have producers who come in and write an album here and artists who reside here as their main musical home, so it gives us a different edge…. It’s a hub for creativity and a hub within the music industry.”
This creative energy and breadth of expertise at Soho Music makes the agency an attractive partner for projects as large scale as Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.
For example, together with Oliver’s team, Soho Music approached and organized the song’s talent — including artists like Paul McCartney, Hugh Jackman, Alesha Dixon, Jazzie B, Professor Green, Jamie Cullum, George The Poet and more — and recorded and produced the track within Soho Music’s ‘The Gin Factory Studios.’
The campaign’s music video received more than 30 million views within the first 24 hours – far more than that of a mainstream artist’s new release, and it helped raise enough awareness to attract the number of signatures needed to take the petition to the G20 summit, according to Young.
“It was absolutely epic, and it was an incredibly proud moment,” said Young. “The impact and global reach created from this online campaign was huge.”
Last month, Soho Music continued to expand its capabilities with the launch of a publishing arm in partnership with Imagem Publishing. At a time when sync (or music synchronized within a commercial or show) is king, Young said she wanted to most effectively position her company within the changing marketplace. More than ever before, syncs are a crucial component of an artist’s revenue stream as record sales no longer bring in the big bucks given the rise of digital and streaming
“There are so many things that govern your chart position now, and there are so many things that are out of the control of the record label,” said Young. “It’s really hard to break a new artist, so sync is really important because it’s an extra platform where music can be exposed in the right way.”
For example, when asked to provide a summer track for a UK online fashion brand Very’s campaign, Soho Music sourced and licensed a remix of Major Lazer’s “Light It Up.” Although the track had been released months before, it was only at #18 in the UK official chart. When the Very ad aired, however, the track shot up to #8 in the UK and to #1 on the Shazam chart in only a couple of weeks.
Originaly posted on clios.com
26th September 2015
The soaring influence of sync Housed in London’s bustling Gin Factory Studios alongside big name artists and producers, Soho Music is a music agency with a difference. Founder Kate Young talks to Music Week about the evolution of the sync sector and why its powers are only going to get stronger having commanded the role of in-house music supervisor at advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, Kate Young decided her skills and expertise could be spread more widely across brands, agencies and directors if she stepped out independently. So, in 2005, she founded the independent music agency Soho Music. The sync landscape back then was less focused and music less of a priority for brands – artists weren’t as open to sync opportunities,” Young remembers.
‘Brands view music with much more importance now,” she adds. ‘It’s now proven that music has a direct effect on people buying, and clients are becoming a lot more aware of the strategy behind choosing the right music for their brand. It’s not about straight sync deals anymore, clients and artists look at the band and brand partnerships to reinforce a campaign, adding longevity to the partnership.” It’s this creativity that the Soho Music team will celebrate alongside friends, partners and competitors from every corner of the sync world on October 15, when everyone from label execs to publishing personnel, brand bods to music supervisors will descend upon London’s Bloomsbury Ballroom for the second Music Week Sync Awards. But, as part of the agency contingent, Soho Music feels it stands out from the crowd.
For two years now, the company has been based in Clerkenwell, where it invested in a 7,000 square foot recording studio complex in a converted distillery. Today, along with Soho Music, The Gin Factory Studios are residence to a number of high profile recording artists and record producers. “Being surrounded by recording artists in the music industry allows us to see a true reflection of what’s going on with all the artists, management companies and A&Rs who come through the doors. It’s much more insightful to be within this environment. No other music agency has positioned themselves like this, which makes Soho Music unique.”
The Sound of Taste for Schwartz