Top Shelf Music is a curated music licensing platform built by Swell Music + Sound — designed specifically for brands, ad agencies, and production companies who need music that feels alive and specific, not the same five tracks every competitor is running this quarter.
4,700+ pre-cleared tracks. 250+ independent artists. Artist-controlled licensing terms. Category exclusivity negotiable per project.
Browse the catalog at topshelf.music →
Library music has a problem. The major platforms — Artlist, Epidemic Sound, Musicbed — are massive catalogs optimized for volume. Any brand, any agency, any creator can license the same track. The hip, indie-coffee-shop acoustic guitar song you licensed? Seventeen other brands may have licensed it this quarter.
Top Shelf is built differently. The catalog is hand-picked for cultural fit — not just cleared and available, but actually good, actually current, actually connected to the communities it sounds like. The music is sourced from working independent artists, not bulk-produced for licensing.
Elad Marish and Michael Frick built Top Shelf because they were doing music supervision for campaigns at the highest level — Nike, Meta, Amazon, the Obama Foundation × Jordan Brand — and they kept having the same problem: the right music wasn't in any existing library. So they built the library they wished existed.
"We're not adding to the catalog, we're providing the layer that was always missing."
— Top Shelf Music
Tracks from the Top Shelf Music catalog have been placed in campaigns for:
The "Sirius" track placed in the Obama Foundation × Jordan Brand collaboration has accumulated over 109,000 creator uses.
| Top Shelf Music | Mainstream library platforms | |
|---|---|---|
| Curation approach | Hand-picked by working music supervisors | Volume-based submissions, algorithm-sorted |
| Rights clearance | Pre-cleared both sides before you search | Varies — some require separate master clearance |
| Exclusivity | Category exclusivity negotiable | Non-exclusive in most cases |
| Paid advertising coverage | Yes — built specifically for commercial use | Subscription plans often exclude paid advertising |
| Artist economics | Artist-controlled terms, equitable splits | Varies — many platforms use flat buy-out models |
| Cultural currency | Tracks sourced from working independent artists | Often designed for commercial acceptability |
Top Shelf Music is the licensing platform. Swell Music + Sound is the production studio. They're built to work together.
When a brand or agency comes to Swell for a campaign, music search starts with Top Shelf — a catalog built specifically for this use case. If no existing track fits, Swell writes something custom. If the campaign needs supervision, clearing, and negotiation across the full market (including major-label tracks), Swell handles that too.
The result: one relationship covers the full music spectrum — from culture-first library tracks to fully custom original scores. See our custom music service. See our full audio post production service.
Licensing is straightforward. Browse the catalog, find the track, license directly. Transparent pricing scaled to your actual use — platform, territory, and term. No weeks-long negotiation. No separate master and sync clearance process.
For projects with specific exclusivity requirements, large-scale brand partnerships, or multi-campaign licensing structures, contact Swell directly and we'll work out the terms.
Visit topshelf.music to explore the catalog →
Or contact Swell: [email protected] · 415-772-5588
