Song credits and music metadata, explained

Music metadata is the information that travels with a song: its title, who it's by, who wrote and produced it, the codes that identify it, its genre, its language and whether it's explicit. Song credits are the part of it that names the people. The stores show it to listeners, use it to file the song on the right artist page, and use it to send the money to the right people.

This guide goes through each field, what it's for and how to fill it in. Metadata is one part of putting a release together, and how to release music covers the rest.

What is music metadata?

Apple describes music metadata as the relevant information about a song, album or artist, the digital version of the liner notes on a record. It sorts it into three kinds:

• Descriptive: artist names (primary and featured), song titles, the release date and track numbers. This is how listeners find the song.
• Performance rights: everyone involved in making the music, so they're recognized and paid.
• Secondary: genre and mood, which listeners, playlists and recommendations use to find music that fits.

Your distributor sends all of it to each store with the audio and the cover art, in the format each store reads.

The fields a release carries

Titles and versions

The song title as it's written, with the capitals you'd use in a sentence or a title, never all caps unless that's the name. A version such as a remix, a live take, an acoustic version or a clean edit goes in its own version field, which keeps the title itself clean.

Artists

The primary artist is who the song is by. A featured artist appears on it, and goes in the featured field instead of the title. Each artist is filed by name, so use the exact spelling of their artist page, and keep your own name identical on every release.

Credits

The songwriters and composers, the producers, the performers on each instrument, and the engineers who mixed and mastered it. Spotify says it shows all credits from the metadata your label or distributor sends, from producers and engineers to songwriters and featured artists, and makes songwriter credits clickable when the writer has a Songwriter Page.

The codes

• An ISRC identifies one recording. The ISRC standard describes it as a fixed reference for that recording across services, borders and licensing deals. A remix or a new recording gets its own; the same recording released again keeps the one it has.
• A UPC identifies the release: the single, EP or album.

Who owns your ISRC codes explains who issues them and why yours should move with you.

Genre, language and explicit

Pick the genre the song belongs to. Apple's advice is that less is more: adding genres that don't fit to reach more listeners works against you. The metadata language is the language the titles are written in, which can differ from the language you sing in. Mark a song explicit if its lyrics are, and send a clean version as its own version if you want one for radio or playlists that need it.

Lyrics

Apple Music and Spotify both show lyrics alongside the song. Ask your distributor how it sends them, and check that each line matches the recording.

Why getting credits and metadata right matters

Being found. Listeners search by name, and stores file each release on an artist page by the name in the metadata. A name spelled two ways can split your music across two pages, or put it on another artist's page. Genre and mood decide which playlists and recommendations the song fits.

Being recognized. The credits are where the people who made the song get their name on it. A producer's or a writer's credit on Spotify and Apple Music is part of their record of work, and it's how other artists find collaborators.

Being paid. Streams are counted against the ISRC, and the money for the recording follows it. The songwriting earns separately, through performing rights organizations and publishers, who match the song to its writers. A missing writer or a wrong share is money that goes to the wrong place or waits unclaimed.

Common metadata mistakes

• The artist name spelled, capitalized or punctuated differently from one release to the next.
• A featured artist written into the title ("Song (feat. Name)") instead of the featured artist field.
• Titles in all caps, or with extra words such as "Official" or "New single".
• Several genres where one fits, or a genre picked to reach a bigger audience.
• A missing songwriter, or a producer credited only by a nickname nobody can find.
• A new ISRC on a recording that already has one, which starts its play count from zero.
• An explicit song not marked explicit, or a clean song marked explicit.

Stores can send a release back over any of these, and the ones that get through need fixing later. If credits are wrong on a live release, Spotify asks you to have your distributor send the track's metadata again, and says the fix usually shows within 7 days.

Credits and royalty splits

Credits say who worked on a song. Splits say who shares in what it earns, and how much. When you write or record with other people, agree on both before the song comes out, in writing, while everyone remembers who did what. The writers' shares are what you register with a performing rights organization; the shares of the recording are agreed between the people who own it.

Credits and splits in Audora

In Audora, each track carries its own credits, delivered to the stores with the music, and each release carries its royalty splits.

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• Credits. Who wrote it, played on it and produced it, down to the arranger and the mastering engineer, and the order the artists are billed in, delivered with the metadata.
• Royalty splits. Who shares in what the release earns, and how much. Each collaborator is invited by email. Audora pays each person their share.
• The codes. We create your ISRCs, they're yours, and they move with you if you leave. Audora is the label on your release, and the masters stay yours.
• The checks. The cover, the audio and the credits are checked before you submit, so the release goes out once.

Once the release is set up, your account shows every step for it, dated to its release day, from the pitch to the posts. Audora keeps tuning those steps as it learns what works best for its artists, adding, dropping and retiming them. What every track gets shows what a release holds, and the release tools show each field in the app.