Music metadata guidelines

Your music’s metadata controls how your songs and releases appear on Spotify. We display your music exactly as it’s delivered to us, so it’s important to get your metadata right.

Your metadata is set by your label or distributor before they deliver your music to us.

To fix any problems with your music’s metadata, your label or distributor needs to send an update to us with the right info.

Artist names

• Add the names of all the artists who contributed to your release and its track(s)
• List each artist’s name in a separate field
• Consider the order you want names to appear on Spotify
• Keep the spelling and formatting of artist names consistent from one release to the next - including any punctuation, abbreviations, or acronyms
• We don’t allow artist names that use SEO terms like Christmas Hits or Sleep Music
• To change your artist name, check out this guide

Artist roles

• Roles dictate which artists are credited on your song or release, and how the music appears on their Spotify artist profile
• They need to be set at both track-level and release-level
• They should include both performers and non-performers
• Key roles to consider include main artists, featured artists, remixers, composers, lyricists, and producers
• If you make classical music, think about roles like conductors and orchestras too
• You shouldn’t include any artists’ names in your track or release titles

Live dates

• Specify what date your music will go live to listeners on Spotify
• It can take a few days for distributors to deliver new music to us, so bear that in mind when selecting your live date
• We recommend setting your live date at least 7 days in the future to allow you time to pitch an unreleased song to our editors for playlist consideration

Country availability

• Add the countries you’d like your music to be available to Spotify listeners in, or set worldwide availability
• Spotify is available to listeners in these countries and territories

Explicit lyric tags

• Mark your explicit tracks as explicit
• We display an E icon next to explicit tracks - you shouldn’t add it to your track title

Cover art

• Check our cover art requirements