In response to the changing needs and priorities of our customers, we are making some changes to the way artist information is entered into our distribution system
Currently we ask users to enter artists individually, providing an alias for each. These are combined into a comma separated list to form the artist field. This is the required format for stores such as Beatport and Spotify and will be specified in the Label Engine system as “Artist List”
e.g. Artist 1, Artist 2 – Track Title
Starting today, we will also be asking you to provide a “Display Artist”. This is a field containing the artist as you would like them to be displayed on stores that support it, such as Amazon and Google Play. This field is already used to display the artist throughout the Label Engine system.
e.g. Artist 1 & Artist 2 – Track Title
Both fields must contain the same artists – if an artist is listed in the Artist List field they must also be listed in the Display Artist field. Failure to do so will result in your release being rejected which could result in a delay. The exception to this is for featured artists, who may be included in the Artist List but should not be included within the Display Artist.
Artist List example: Artist 1, Artist 2, Featured Artist – Track Title feat. Featured Artist
Display Artist example: Artist 1 & Artist 2 – Track Title feat. Featured Artist
We will begin to supply the Display Artist field to stores that support it over the coming week. You can find out which artist display type each store uses by browsing through each store in the distribution section.
We have also added the option to re-order the artists and remixers as you add them by using the up and down arrows. This ordering information will be provided to the stores however not all of them support it (this includes Beatport – see https://beatportops.zendesk.com/entries/22362217-Display-and-order-of-artist-names-on-a-track-or-release for more info).
Please note that although we will always submit the data to the stores as you have provided it, it is up to each store how they display your tracks and they may choose to amend or omit artist and track data.
These changes will not affect releases that have already been distributed, any changes that you make to the Display Artist field of your existing releases will not be transferred to the stores unless explicitly requested.
Any questions or feedback feel free to send them to support(at)label-engine.com
You can also follow us on twitter at @Label_Engine or facebook at facebook.com/labelengine