Beginning today, DistroKid artists can send song credits & liner notes to streaming services.

This is an amazing service that is only available to DistroKid and our members. No other distributor offers it. So if you’re using a different distributor, click here for a 20% discount and switch to DistroKid today.

Background

If you’re a musician and your music is in streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify, your distributor sends a very limited amount of information (aka “metadata”) about your music to these services.

Here’s what gets sent:

Album title

Song title

Artist name

General info like genre, language, and release date.

And in some cases: Songwriter, producer, and remixer.

What’s being added?

DistroKid’s new service collects the following extended metadata:

Songwriters and whether they contributed lyrics, music — or both.

and whether they contributed lyrics, music — or both. Musicians and their instrument. Supports drums, bass, guitar, keyboard, kazoo, didgeridoo, triangle, flugelhorn, and almost 100 other instruments.

and their instrument. Supports drums, bass, guitar, keyboard, kazoo, didgeridoo, triangle, flugelhorn, and almost 100 other instruments. Producers and beat makers.

and beat makers. Designer of your album artwork, including photographer and graphic designer.

of your album artwork, including photographer and graphic designer. Everyone else involved and their job. Arrangers, choirs, agents, managers, drivers, drum techs, hair stylists, and over 160 other predefined roles.

and their job. Arrangers, choirs, agents, managers, drivers, drum techs, hair stylists, and over 160 other predefined roles. The studio and information about where and how the music was recorded.

and information about where and how the music was recorded. Gear & equipment that was used. Artists can list all instruments, computers, software, and recording gear.

that was used. Artists can list all instruments, computers, software, and recording gear. Social media links including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Contact information for booking, management, and general inquiries.

for booking, management, and general inquiries. Inspiration and musical influences that you’d like to share.

that you’d like to share. Shout outs and thank you’s for anyone you want to acknowledge.

for anyone you want to acknowledge. Lyrics to all your songs. (we launched our lyric service a few weeks ago but it’s relevant here too.)

Add, edit, and reorder unlimited credits for every song.

How will streaming services use this information?

It’s too soon to know exactly how it’ll all be used. But streaming services are getting serious about collecting metadata.

Even DDEX (the language that distributors use to deliver data to stores) is getting metadata-nutty with the recent introduction of RIN, a new standard that supports thousands of new metadata types. In their words:

There are a number of metadata elements that may be worth capturing. The richer the data, the better retailers can market the products — which can potentially increase the audience and revenue generated.

And we’re already seeing innovation.

For example, Spotify just announced (here) that they’re going to show songwriter credits in the app. Apple Music shows lyrics (and DistroKid lets you add lyrics). Tidal shows artists’ Facebook & Twitter links. Amazon Echo lets you find songs by saying “Alexa, play the song that goes ‘now I’m falling asleep and she’s taking a cab.’”

And this is just the beginning.

DistroKid’s new service is capable of sending an extreme amount of detailed metadata to streaming services.

Some streaming services can handle it all. Others only have the capability to accept a small portion for now—but likely more in the future.

DistroKid’s new service will monitor each streaming partner, and continuously update them with the maximum amount of metadata they can handle at any time.

DistroKid’s goal is to help our artists be successful. We were the first distributor to offer unlimited uploads for one price with no commission. We’re also the first to offer automatic royalty splits, instant verification on Spotify, lyric uploads to Apple Music, artist photos, free backups, and many more.

This new service makes a massive amount of new information available to streaming companies. Which they can use to build cool stuff. Which ultimately helps artists become more successful.

It’s called “credits” and it’s available today — and it’s free for all DistroKid members.

Add your credits now by clicking visiting:

https://distrokid.com/credits

…or by clicking “Settings” (the gear icon in DistroKid) and “Credits.”

Thanks for reading… and enjoy!