Jelena Grozdanich: Sell the Feeling, Not the Name

Jelena Grozdanich is director of sync at Soundstripe, which means her job is getting songs from the catalog into film, television, advertising and video games. She joined in 2025 after a decade at Sony Music Entertainment and Columbia Records, where she helped shape the company's global sync strategy and worked with artists including Beyoncé, Bob Dylan and Harry Styles.

In this episode of Soundstripe Sessions, Jeff Perkins talks to Jelena about why she used to be part of the problem for music supervisors, how a supervisor's brief turns into a placement, what keeps showing up in briefs right now, the afternoon she talked her way into a studio where Odd Future was recording, Soundstripe's Nashville sync camp, and why a song about your boyfriend Steve probably won't get synced.

The show has had music supervisors on before, including Josh Rabinowitz on choosing music for advertising. Jelena sits on the other side of the same table. The supervisor picks the song. She is the person trying to get the right song in front of them before the deadline, and usually that deadline is today.

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From part of the problem to part of the solution

Jeff opened with the obvious difficulty of the job. When you represent famous artists, the name does half the selling. Soundstripe's artists are independent, and most supervisors have never heard of them.

Jeff: If you're repping artists people know, you go in and say, do you want to use this artist, and they say, I love that artist. With us, they probably don't know the artists. So how do you get these artists who make great music in front of music supervisors for consideration?

Jelena: What was so interesting about coming onto the team here is I always got to tell my supervisors, before, I used to be a part of the problem. Now I get to be a part of your solution. What I mean by that is when you wanted to use a major label song, you had to clear 17 writers. You had to make sure there were no samples, no side artists, and it was a really cumbersome process to clear music. That's why I love and commend these music supervisors, because the job is not just pick a song and hope it all works out. It's pick a song, jump through all these legal hoops, and hope it makes sense at the end of the day.

Jelena: Now when I'm pitching Soundstripe to our supervisors and our clients, I get to say, hey, we're a one-stop shop. We represent the master recording, we represent 100% of the publishing, and all you have to worry about is does this sonically fit your project. And so often a music supervisor may not care who the artist is. They want the best song that works for picture. They want the lyrics to make sense. They want the instrumental to make you feel a certain way, because the reason music is used in media is to evoke emotion.

That one-stop point is the core of the argument. A sync license has two halves, the recording and the composition, and a big commercial song can have both split across a label, several publishers and every co-writer. When one party controls both halves, a supervisor clears the song in one conversation.

She also thinks unknown artists are an advantage with a certain kind of supervisor, not a handicap.

Jelena: Oftentimes music supervisors love to be at the forefront. They want to be using something other people don't know about, because the reason music supervisors are hired for projects is they're also trendsetters. So when they come to use independent music, that's where Soundstripe gets to come into play, where we're representing independent artists who are making money through having their music placed in these projects.

Apple Arcade and a party scene in Your Friends & Neighbors

Jeff: What are some of the placements you've gotten since you've been here that you're most proud of?

Jelena: One of the ones I'm most proud of is a really great placement with Apple, with their Apple Arcade video gaming series. That was so great because it was with a partner of ours that I've known since the beginning of my career, and we've kind of come up together. So much of what our industry is, while the music speaks loudly, the people we work with are speaking just as loud. Everything we do is so relationship based. There's really no system as to why one song makes it to the final cut, and that might be because of the relationship we have with that decision maker.

Jelena: We've also done some really great work in film and television. We had a great placement in an Apple TV series called Your Friends & Neighbors, starring Jon Hamm. That show uses music in such a fun, cool way. I loved hearing one of our Soundstripe songs in a fun party scene where the main character was moving around, and there was a really pivotal moment where the music played shortly after.

Soundstripe's own placement roundup lists one Apple Arcade use, "Picture Perfect Gurl" by SPARKZ, in a promotion for the Bluey takeover of Suika Game+. The Your Friends & Neighbors placement was in season 2, episode 5. Both sit on the running list of Soundstripe music in the wild, alongside the ads and shows that came before them.

Fifteen minutes from Gary, Indiana

Jeff: Let's take a step back. Tell me where you grew up.

Jelena: I grew up in Northwest Indiana, right outside of Chicago. The way I describe it to people is I'm about 15 minutes from Gary, Indiana, which is where Michael Jackson and Freddie Gibbs are from. So music has always been a big part of my life. Growing up near the South Side of Chicago, I just really knew I wanted to do something more than be from a small town. I played a few instruments, I was in musical theater, and my family was really into music, but none of them worked in the industry in any way, shape or form.

She went to the University of Southern California, and the thing that pointed her at sync was television she had watched as a teenager.

Jelena: My first internship was at Warner Chappell Music on the publishing side, and I had a mentor there who asked me, how do you discover new music? This was the heyday of the mid 2000s, Gossip Girl, 90210, The O.C., where music was being used in such a special way. That's how I discovered music, being from my small town in Indiana, watching these TV shows and seeing how on The O.C. they had Modest Mouse and The Killers and all these incredible bands come and perform on the show, or just use music in such evocative ways.

Jelena: And my mentor said, well, there's a whole business that does this. It's called sync. You can be a part of it as someone who chooses the music, or you can represent the artist to have their music in it. And strangely enough, I knew day one that I was meant to be on the creative and clearance side. I never had a deep desire to be a music supervisor. I had a desire to represent the talent and have their music placed in things.

A chili cheese dog and an unpaid internship

Jeff asked how a student gets an internship at a major publisher, which he assumed was close to impossible. The answer involves a hot dog.

Jelena: I actually spent my first year of university at Indiana University, and I did an internship for a music festival we had on campus. It was a hospitality internship, and I'll never forget, my job was to look at the green room riders, and one of the artists' lists said, chili cheese dog must be hot. So I'd have to run to the hot dog shop and make sure it came back at the right temperature. That was the only music industry thing on my resume, other than saying I want to study this, and I did theater and dance as a kid.

Jelena: And truly, my internship with Warner Chappell came through what I call the black hole of the internet. I put my resume into the digital pile and hoped for the best, and I got that call. A lot of this industry is who you know, but a lot of it is also luck. There are a million other people just as qualified, sometimes more qualified than you, but there was something in that HR team's mind that day that said, let's give this person a shot.

Jeff: Was it paid or unpaid?

Jelena: It was the early 2010s, which was kind of when people started saying these really do have to be paid. But now that I say it out loud, this was an unpaid internship, because I had to supplement my income working at Abercrombie Kids at the Century City mall.

She studied communication, with music industry as a minor. Later, at Sony and Columbia, she ran the internship program, and she watched the incoming students change.

Jelena: When I was at Sony and Columbia Records for 10 years, I ran our internship program, and as the years went on, so many of those kids had a specific music business or music industry degree. The work we do is so niche and specific that people really want to study just that.

Asked whether she ever wants out of a business that keeps changing under her, she said the reason she stays is the work itself.

Jelena: The few things I've done in my life have always been about allowing, which is part of the ethos of Soundstripe: keep creators creating. Ultimately I want creators not to have to worry about how they're going to exist as this world changes so much. And the other reason I work in the music industry is that I work with music. I don't sell pencils. I represent music I personally love and listen to, and artists I can talk about with confidence because I actually like them.

How a brief becomes a placement

This is the practical center of the episode. Jeff asked her to walk through the whole thing, from a supervisor's request to a song in a finished show.

Jelena: The thing that's always most challenging is figuring out who the decision maker is. Part of my job is to determine who that is and develop real, genuine relationships with them. Then there are really two ways it can come. One is a music supervisor has me on a list of people they email. It could be a short list of a few select folks, or a mega list of maybe a hundred music providers, and they send out what's called a brief. They'll say, hey, I'm working on this TV show, we need cool jazzy instrumental songs that can clear within a certain budget, send us selections in the next 24 hours or the next 48 hours. Or sometimes we get that email at one o'clock and they need it by four.

Jelena: Then my job is to work within our catalog and figure out what songs there are, and we have so many. We have over 116,000 songs you can choose from. So I use the systems we have here at Soundstripe and also our team members. I work really closely with one of our music curators who knows the catalog like the back of his hand. And luckily we live in a world of technology, so we can use it to our benefit to source through the catalog, making sure the catalog has great metadata to search through.

The search gets her to a shortlist. The brief often does not describe a sound at all.

Jelena: Hopefully that brief has a reference track, where they say, hey, we need a song that sounds like this. Or they go a little more nuanced and say, we need it to feel like fall, or we need it to feel like you're walking into a room and everybody you know is at the party. And that's the fun, challenging part. How do you find a song that feels like walking into a party where you know everyone? Technology may not be able to pull what that feeling is. So we have to use our brains and our emotions and our intuition and say, this is what I think it is. We'll send that playlist back to the music supervisor and say, here are some songs, and here are some options that might be a little left of center that we thought might work.

Jelena: That's one way, where the supervisor says, this is exactly what we need, come to us with that. The other way is we reach out proactively. Hey, we know you're working on this project, or we have all this great new music in this vein and we know you work on similar projects. Then when they decide they love one of our songs, they tell us, we've been testing the song to picture and we'd love to make this placement happen. We tell them what it costs, we sign on the dotted line, and then we get really lucky and get to see the final project.

When the catalog doesn't have it

Jeff asked for the strangest brief she has had. She didn't have an abstract one to offer. What she sees instead is very specific requests, and she was frank that no catalog covers all of them.

Jelena: A lot of content being produced is relatively niche. We're living in such a niche world. So they might be looking for Ukrainian hip-hop from a certain era, or Bollywood music that evokes a certain feeling. And while the Soundstripe catalog has so much music, we might not be able to fulfill everything, just like most catalogs in the world can't. That's what's so important when you're working with partners: you want to remain a trusted partner. Part of what makes a really good sync partner is being able to say, hey, we might not have what you need.

Jelena: Or it's saying, we might not have what you need, but we might be able to make it happen. If you tell us what it is in a really specific way, we might be able to fill that, because a lot of what we do here is also custom music. We work with a lot of partners who need something that specifically fits certain hits and certain moves in a visual, and we get to be there right at the start with them, working with our in-house composers and some third-party artists, producers and composers to make original music for that project.

What is showing up in briefs right now

Jeff pointed out that Soundstripe's own data skews toward the genres you'd expect, cinematic and corporate, the background music that doesn't fight the story. He asked whether she was hearing anything different from the supervisors.

Jelena: We definitely see a big push for a more global sound, which matches where the world is going. Like I said, we've needed Eastern European hip-hop, we've needed Bollywood music, and a lot of Latin music is having a big moment. I hate to call it a trend, because it's really just where the world is growing and going.

Jelena: The other thing, which is also a personal love of mine, is female vocals. We're seeing a lot of female pop artists coming to the top. In the mainstream world it's Olivia Dean, it's Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo. And there's this thing where people really want music they can hear and feel, with some grit and naturalness to it, where a lot of music is maybe too overproduced or too clean. That's why people are back at concerts so much. There's such a difference between having your AirPods in on the subway and being in a room of 200 or 500 or 30,000 people feeling the same thing.

Independent artists and the work of building an audience

The conversation turned to live shows, and from there to what it takes for an independent artist to get heard at all. Her example was marigolde, the project of Nashville singer-songwriter Marielle Kraft, whose music Soundstripe uses a lot.

Jelena: She is doing her first-ever show in London later this year, and she sold half the tickets immediately upon announcing. It's so interesting, the reach these independent artists can have. She's never performed in London, and all of a sudden people are dying to see her. It shows people do want to go see those big things, but they also want to support independent music.

Jeff gets a version of the same email every week, from a friend whose kid is a senior at Belmont and wants a career in music. His honest answer is that the label machine that used to build an artist's audience has mostly gone, and artists now have to build it themselves. Jelena watched that change from inside a major label.

Jelena: In my last few years at a major label, I remember being in meetings where we're not just talking about the music. We're talking about what kind of content are you creating. What does your live show look like, when you've never performed live a day in your life? How many TikToks are you making, how many Instagram posts? Are you on Discord and Reddit, on every platform that's ever existed? Because that's the way to be known. Radio isn't the sole driving force anymore.

Jelena: I remain optimistic, though, because most people who work in music really like music in some way, shape or form. Fans can smell it, and people in this business can smell it, when you don't care about music. The other people in the industry make sure the right people end up in place.

Jeff's example of hustle meeting luck was Daisha McBride, the Nashville rapper who came on the podcast earlier this year. She saw the band Crash Adams filming street videos with people rapping along, messaged them to offer herself, got told to meet them on Sunset Boulevard in 15 minutes, and the video went viral. Jelena had her own version of that story.

Poking her head into the studio

Jelena: My moment of initiative and luck was at that first internship at Warner Chappell. I was 19, I'd been living in Los Angeles maybe a few months, and I was working in the production area, where there was an in-house studio for the songwriters to come in and write. There was a set of really incredible producers, twins who were born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, and I literally overheard them say "Chicago" from across the room. I got up from my desk, walked over, said, oh, I'm from outside of Chicago, and poked my head into the studio.

Jelena: We started talking, and they said, come through the studio, you should meet some people. Then I end up at the studio, and they're working with a rapper named Earl Sweatshirt, who's part of Odd Future. Odd Future is Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Domo Genesis, Hodgy Beats and the very, very well-known Frank Ocean. So I was in that room before Channel Orange, getting to experience what Odd Future was like in Los Angeles as a 19-year-old. To see what that sounded like before the music was released is probably one of the most incredible moments of my career, and it happened because I said, I'm just going to poke my head in there and see what happens.

Inside a Soundstripe sync camp

Watching music get made fast, she said, was one of the things she was most excited about when she joined Soundstripe, and the clearest place to see it is a sync camp.

Jeff: Talk a little bit about the sync camp and why we do that at Soundstripe. What's the purpose of those events?

Jelena: The sync camps are there to broaden the depth of our library and fill out more specific or niche areas. Most recently we did it in Nashville, back in May of 2026. We pulled together some really incredible local musicians and sent them briefs for the type of music we're seeing. We worked with Aaron Mercer, who you had on the podcast, and had him share what's trending in his world and some specific briefs that were going on. The artists had a few days to make the music, paired up with producers they work well with. At the end of the week we had 15 finished songs, where we anticipated maybe half that. They just got into such a rhythm and flow.

Jelena: The reason songwriting camps work so well is that people actually like to be in the pressure cooker. It's like an athlete who loves being on the field when they're playing the game. This is the artist version of that. Independent artists who have worked in sync before love making music in this world, and the music is so strong because they have a specific thing they're going towards, which is different from making music just to make music.

Aaron Mercer, co-president of Premier Music Group, recorded his own episode live from that camp. Marielle Kraft and Daisha McBride both wrote at it. Soundstripe has also run its first camp outside the US, in Abu Dhabi with PopArabia. Jeff's tip for anyone curious about what a camp looks like: Soundstripe made a short documentary about it, and searching "Soundstripe sync camp" on YouTube will find it.

Advice for artists who want sync

Jeff has noticed more artists treating sync as a real career rather than a consolation prize, a way to keep making music, get paid for placements and build a royalty stream over time. He asked what those artists should do.

Jelena: Really learn who those decision makers are, and study what they're choosing to use in TV shows, films and advertisements. Learn what type of music is working for sync. What was different working at a major label is that what works on a stage, or on the DSPs, meaning Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, doesn't necessarily translate to sync. There's a love-hate relationship with the term sync music, but sync music is music that helps the picture flow. We're not creating lyrics that are hyper-specific, or a sound that won't work behind picture.

Jelena: So if you want your music synced, learn what music is being synced, and if you're building relationships with decision makers, look at what they're actually using. Just because you love a TV show or a brand or a video game doesn't mean your music works for it, and that's okay. Your music is going to work for something else. There's so much different content and so many brands now. I sit in a hardcore abundance mindset that there's space for everyone.

Jeff's example was someone he knows in Atlanta who has become a go-to source of music for Love Island, a show that runs through a huge volume of songs. Her sound fit the show, she built the relationship, and because the show keeps making episodes, the work keeps coming.

Why a song about Steve won't get synced

Jeff: What's the difference between a song that's a banger you want on your album and a song you'd do for sync? Or is there a difference?

Jelena: I want to say there is, and I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but sometimes the music just has to be a little more general. A song that says I love my boyfriend Steve might not work for sync. But a song that says I love this feeling when I'm with them, that might translate to romantic love. It could also translate to familial love. Steve is great, I'm sure he's fabulous, but we don't know Steve. We do all know that feeling of I love this feeling when I'm with them. Music like that is what really works for sync.

Grey's Anatomy and a song that sat on the shelf

Jeff called it probably Soundstripe's biggest sync placement to date: a song in Grey's Anatomy, a show whose placements are usually already-popular songs or popular artists with a song about to break. This one was a song that had been sitting in the catalog for years.

Jelena: The music supervisor, Justin Kamps, wonderful man, said, hey, we're looking for music in these different buckets. We need things that are emotional and evoke a lot of feeling. We need things that will drive picture into a smoother place. So we sent music, and part of what we hope is the supervisor takes the time to listen. That song was in one of our pitches and it must have stood out to him. Like you said, it was five years old, but when it's good music, it's timeless music. It wasn't talking about his iPod or something that pins it to one specific moment. It was about a general moment and a general feeling, and that works so well for picture.

Jelena: Then we got to see that song have a huge moment. I think it was over two minutes, maybe two and a half, which is huge in the sync world, where you got to hear that song in its pure fullness. And I'll never forget The Fray, "How to Save a Life," or Snow Patrol, "Chasing Cars." Grey's Anatomy was one of the shows that made me love music. And so often when you live on a coast, you forget about the middle of the country. People still sit down after dinner and watch Grey's Anatomy when it comes on, and they Shazam the song because something in the scene made them feel something. That's when the artist gets their moment.

Jeff: When the show dropped, we realized it's not just a placement in the show, it's the placement. It was during the critical sequence where someone was having a baby, someone was dying, a relationship was breaking up, and that song was the through line, right into the commercial break. A lot of times you get excited about a placement and then you watch the show and hear five seconds of it in the background. This was an integral part of the storytelling.

The song was "First Light" by Half Measure, in season 22, episode 5. Kamps first heard it while pitching for a different scene where it didn't land, then came back to it. Jelena interviewed him and the band about it, and the conversation is in how First Light found its way to Grey's Anatomy.

Two songs from the catalog

Jeff asked for her favorite song in the catalog right now. She knew exactly how it sounds and couldn't quite land the title, which she took as the point.

Jelena: There's one we placed in an Electrolux spot, and I wish I could remember the name, because we have 116,000 songs. But the best part about our catalog is I know the feeling it gives me. It has this ethereal drop sound at the beginning, and it's truly just such a beautiful song. We may not remember the song title, we may not remember the artist, but we'll remember how it sounds and how it made us feel.

"Songbirds" by Chelsea McGough and Emorie

That was "Songbirds," which ran in an Electrolux campaign. Jeff remembered the spot as a snowy field full of Scandinavians and could not recall where the appliances came in, which Jelena said was exactly right.

Jelena: Oftentimes it's not about selling a product. It's about selling a feeling and what that feeling brings you, and you associate that with the product. Kudos to the team who chose that song, because they chose a song that makes you think, I like the way this sounds and the way it makes me feel, so I bet I'll like how it feels to be aligned with that brand.

Jeff: As someone who worked in advertising, the song is a bit unconventional. It's not a standard score. It makes you want to listen and ask, what is this? There's a lot going on in it that draws you into the story.

"Living For" by marigolde

The second track came out of the Nashville sync camp, and Jelena is on it.

Jeff: Such a feel-good vibe to that one. And you're featured on background vocals.

Jelena: I am featured on background vocals. Luckily they buried them a good amount, to make sure we heard the real star of the show.

There's clapping and whooping in the background, and Jeff's verdict was that it's hard to hear it without smiling.

Advice for her younger self

Jeff: If you could give your younger self one piece of wisdom or advice, what would it be?

Jelena: Keep poking your head into the rooms. If you're not asking for it, it's not going to happen for you. Keep asking questions and keep being really curious, because curiosity is what pushed me forward, and it's what puts the right people in the right rooms.

She couldn't remember the saying she was reaching for. Jeff supplied it: a closed mouth never gets fed.

Jelena: I'm terrible with sayings. But just like we're talking about with music, I might not be able to tell you the lyrics of a song, but I can tell you what it makes me feel.

If you have a project that needs music placed, Jelena and the Soundstripe sync team take briefs directly. She is based in New York and, by her own account, easiest to find on LinkedIn.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Jelena Grozdanich?

Jelena Grozdanich is director of sync at Soundstripe, based in New York. She joined Soundstripe in 2025 after a decade at Sony Music Entertainment and Columbia Records, where she helped shape the company's global sync strategy. Her first internship was on the publishing side at Warner Chappell Music while she was a student at the University of Southern California.

What does a director of sync do?

A director of sync represents a music catalog to the people who choose music for film, television, advertising and games. Jelena Grozdanich builds relationships with music supervisors, answers the briefs they send, pitches songs proactively when she knows a project is in production, and closes the license once a supervisor has tested a song to picture and wants it.

What is a music brief?

A music brief is a request a music supervisor sends to music providers describing what a scene needs. It usually includes a style or a reference track, a budget the song has to clear within, and a deadline, which can be 48 hours or as little as three. Some briefs describe a feeling instead of a sound, such as a song that feels like fall.

What does one-stop mean in sync licensing?

One-stop means a single party controls both the master recording and the publishing on a song, so a supervisor can clear the whole thing in one deal. A major label song can involve many writers, publishers and samples, each needing approval. Soundstripe pitches its sync catalog to supervisors as one-stop for exactly that reason.

What makes a song work for sync?

A song works for sync when it supports the picture instead of competing with it. According to Jelena Grozdanich, that usually means lyrics general enough to fit more than one story. A line about a feeling can carry a romantic scene or a family scene. A line naming a specific person, like a boyfriend called Steve, only fits one.

How do artists break into sync?

Start by learning who the decision makers are and studying what they actually use in shows, films and ads. Jelena Grozdanich's point is that what works on stage or on streaming platforms doesn't always translate to sync. Pitch music that fits a supervisor's existing choices, and accept that a song can be good without being right for a particular show.

What is a Soundstripe sync camp?

A Soundstripe sync camp is a songwriting camp where artists and producers spend a few days writing to real briefs, to fill specific gaps in the catalog. The Nashville camp in May 2026 worked from briefs shared by Aaron Mercer of Premier Music Group and finished with 15 songs. Soundstripe has also run a camp in Abu Dhabi with PopArabia.