In the sleepy world of music for infants, Rockabye Baby! stands alone. Created by Lisa Roth and CMH Label Group, the series has reimagined thousands of songs by legendary rock, pop, and hip-hop acts as lullabies. Parents and children have fallen in love. The series has generated over 4.5 billion streams.
Roth stopped by to talk about the inception of this idea, why she’s been able to sustain it for decades, how you adapt heavy metal for babies, and the difficulties of adapting music by her famous brother, David Lee Roth. If you enjoy our conversation, check out the latest releases from Rockabye Baby! wherever you stream music.
I know you’ve told this story before, but where did the idea for Rockabye Baby! come from?
The first week I started working at CMH Label Group, I had to go to a baby shower for a friend who loved music. I thought this was going to be an easy gift to find. It was 21 or 22 years ago, and there wasn’t much online shipping. So, I went to a baby store looking for music that would be fun to give as a gift. There was nothing! I went back to the owner of CMH Label Group and said that we needed to get into the baby business. I wanted to create something for the adult that had a sense of humor and a bit of irony.
Valerie Aiello came up with a “Lullaby Rendition of …” series rather than “Baby’s First Punk Rock” or “Baby’s First Sex Pistols,” which is what I initially pitched. The lullaby renditions idea clicked with the owner of the company a bit more. Then it became a full-time development project. 20 years later, we have a full-on baby brand with over 130 releases totaling 4.5 billion streams.
Could you tell me a little bit about the first release and if it was difficult to get that first project off the ground?
It took about a year to develop the brand, and we actually released three artists at once because we figured three releases made a series. It was initially a rock brand, so those three releases were Radiohead, Coldplay, and Metallica. That covered three genres of rock.
This wasn’t a huge leap for the label. They had done popular songs in different genres before. For example, they had started the Vitamin String Quartet, which was doing very well now. They did string quartet versions of rock, pop, and hip-hop songs. So, it was a little bit of a well-oiled machine. When we did the first releases, The New York Times did a big article on it, and that led to so much traffic that it crashed our website. It was so popular because there was nothing else like it.
Initially, we treated it like any other music series. We were putting the releases in bins at record stores for whatever artist the album was covering. But that wasn’t really working. I felt like people couldn’t find it. Six months in, we hired Francie Kaplan, a marketing person who had worked for Disney and Mattel. She said we had to treat this like a true brand with a cohesive logo and color schemes and characters.
She also suggested that we get into brick-and-mortar baby and children’s stores. That was a first for the label. Then it just kept growing through word of mouth. 20 years later, the industry has changed. Brick-and-mortar discovery isn’t a thing anymore. So, we’ve transitioned with the industry and moved to streaming.
How does the licensing work for these projects? Is it all compulsory licenses, or do you need buy-in from the artist?
We pursue mechanical licenses for each and every track. That requires the publisher or owner of the recordings to sign off. A compulsory license may pop up if there were lots of writers on a track. That’s very common now. You’ve got 12 writers on a song, and we can’t find one. Personally, I prefer to get the mechanical, so I know we have sign-off.
I think the longevity of this project is best illustrated by the artists you’ve covered. At the beginning, you did releases by Pink Floyd and The Cure. Now, you’re doing Paramore and Post Malone. Is there just as much interest from parents in this type of music these days as when you initially launched the series?
Yes! When I wanted to do this at the beginning, we were making this for the adult. Our characters and cover art and verbiage and marketing all have the adult in mind. Of course, we also want the music to be soft and digestible enough for an infant or toddler. But we also want the adult to be able to recognize it. I want them to have fun too. It creates an opportunity for real bonding between parent and child.
I’m glad you’ve mentioned the cover art. It’s all so playful and fun.
Yup. All of our artwork is a nod to the original artist. There’s also little hidden iconography. It’s fun to come up with ideas. I work very closely with Jennifer Cuellar, our lead illustrator who has been working on the brand for over 15 years
When going through some releases in the series, I was shocked to see how often you’ll arrange complicated songs, like “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen or “Schism” by Tool. Are there any artists or songs you won’t touch because they are too complex?
No. Unfortunately, we don’t consider how difficult the music might be before we do it. Translating all artists—but especially certain artists—into instrumental lullabies using our particular palette is kind of an art form. And it’s all done by humans. It’s a challenge, but it’s really one of the most enjoyable things in the creative process. Like it’s not easy to simulate a sustained minor chord while using a wooden block.
Some people think all you have to do is slow the music down, but that’s actually not the case. If you slow it down, you lose the recognizability. There are other little tricks and nuances that you have to finesse. We haven’t started with an artist that we weren’t able to complete. Some are definitely harder than others, though. And there are some that you think would be easier but end up being tricky.
Are there any particular challenges that come to mind?
When we translated a number of Madonna songs using our Rockabye Baby! palette, they had too much of a Calypso vibe that we had to really tweak to get right. Heavy metal is also not easy. Neither is hip-hop, especially if it’s not melodic. But they’re all great challenges, and the producers we work with have always gotten it done.
I also noticed that you don’t shy away from covering music with explicit lyrics, like Wu-Tang Clan or Kanye West or even Pink. Has there ever been any pushback from parents for including songs with expletives?
All our lullaby renditions are instrumentals, no lyrics. Since we started this before social media, there wasn’t much initial pushback. Occasionally, the explicit lyrics of the original would get pointed out in the press and you might find some disgruntled person. But the point was to have fun, or even funny renditions of these songs clearly made for adults to enjoy too.
I would be remiss not to acknowledge another complex, sometimes subversive group that you’ve covered: Van Halen. Of course, your brother was the lead singer of Van Halen. Was there any uniqueness to that project given the familial connection there?