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SPOTIFY - Ensuring Your Music Reaches Fans: A Guide to Metadata Excellence

Motiva Groove Team
January 10, 2024
5 min read

Maintaining high-quality metadata is essential to ensuring your content is easily discovered and presented accurately to listeners. Following these standards helps eliminate user confusion and reduces the time and effort needed for corrections. Please note that content not conforming to these standards may face delivery delays or rejection.

The Golden Rule: Unique Track Titles

One of the most frequent causes for delivery issues is the ALBUM_HAS_IDENTICAL_TRACKS error. To ensure a smooth delivery process, please adhere to the following requirement:

Each track title in a product must be unique.

The Exception: You may have identical track titles only when they represent different versions of the same track that are distinguished by their Parental Advisory tags (e.g., a Clean version and an Explicit version).

Warning: The terms "Clean" or "Explicit" must be entered using the proper metadata tag field and not included as part of the track title or version title. Furthermore, if tracks on an album share the same title, they must be made unique through their version/mix information; tracks with the same name and the same mix name shall be rejected.

Differentiating Your Tracks with the Version Field

If your album contains multiple versions of the same song that are not Clean/Explicit variants, you must use the Version Field to make each entry unique.

  • Standard Versions: The original, standard version of a track should not include additional information like "Album Version" or "Original Mix".
  • Alternative Versions: Use the version field for terms such as "Live", "Radio Edit", or "Extended Version".
  • Remasters: These should be formatted as [Year] Remaster (e.g., 2024 Remaster) and placed in the version field.
  • Rerecorded Content: If a track has been rerecorded, the track version must be listed as "Rerecorded".

Metadata Formatting Best Practices

To ensure your release is professional and searchable, keep these formatting rules in mind:

  • Avoid SEO Spam: Do not use terms like "Sleep Music," "Chill," or "Music for Concentration" in titles or version fields.
  • Proper Casing: Titles should follow the capitalization rules of their language. For English, capitalize the first and last words, but keep internal prepositions of four letters or fewer (like "of," "to," "at") in lowercase.
  • No Extra Formatting: Version titles should be entered without parentheses or other symbols (e.g., use 2011 Remaster instead of (2011 Remaster)).
  • Individual Artist Credits: If multiple artists performed on a track, list each one individually in their own field rather than combining them into one "compound" field.

By following these guidelines, you help us ensure your music is accurately represented and reaches your audience without technical hurdles.