Artist or band names

• Artist or band names

1. Artist name choice. Before distributing your album, make sure that no other artists are currently using the same artist or band name (similar or identical), since this can cause conflicts in the channels and your albums may be combined under the catalog of the other artist with similar artist or band name, or vice-versa.

2. Roles at album and track level. In the releases with two or more tracks, only the primary artists should be featured at the album level. Except from classical albums, where the composer/s must be introduced at the album level too.

About one-track singles, they must have the same information at the album and track level. Therefore all the roles have to be reflected at the album level.

3. Primary artist assignation. The following must be considered:

• If the release has two or more tracks:

1. If there is only 1 primary artist, the main artist must appear as the primary throughout all the tracks and also at the album level.
2. If there are 2 or 3 primary artists, each one of them must appear at least one time in one track. And all of them must appear at the album level.
3. If there are 4 or more primary artists, each one of them must appear in their corresponding track. At the album level the primary artist must be “Various Artists”, as more than three primary artists can not be included.

• If the release is a one-track single: The primary artists must be the same at the album and the track level.

4. Use of "Various Artists". If there are four or more primary artists on the album, the artist name to be mentioned at album’s level must be "Various Artists". The tag “Various Artists” can not be used at the track level and can not be combined with other primary artists’ names.

At the track level is preferable that do not appear too many primary artists’ names. It is important not to confuse the role with "performer". For example, if it's about a band, the band name must appear as primary artist and the members names as performers.

5. Incorrect display of "Various Artists". Variations or abbreviations of "Various Artists" (e.g. "V/A", "VA", "Various", "Various Artist" or similar) should not be used as an artist name for the content in English. The translation of "Various Artists" is accepted, but only if it’s consistent with the language of the content.

6. Composer. Composers have to be indicated only at the track level, except from one-track singles and in classical music.

In classical releases the composers have to appear at both levels (track and album). If there are more than 4 composers appearing in all tracks the only composer introduced at the album level will be “Various Composers”. Please, do not use the term “Various Composers” in non-classical releases.

7. Format. The spelling of the artists’ names must be correct and consistent across the entire contents of that artist.

The artist’s name should not contain all capital letters except from:

• Cacophonies. That is unpronounceable words usually consisting of various consonants altogether.
• Real acronyms. The dots are compulsory in these cases.
• Special requests. If a profile is already created in the channels with capital letters or there’s a special request to keep the artist’s name in capital letters backed with social networks’ profiles and other official web pages, then the name can be sent in capital letters. This request has to be notified to the Support Team prior to the upload of the album.

8. Other information. The artist's name must not include any additional information, such as the role, dates, instruments, band type, web page, etc.

9. Compound artist. Each artist field must only contain one artist name.

Two or more performers or groups in the same artist field are considered a compound artist. However, artists who are generally listed together as a band (their names make the artist’s name) are not considered compound artists and can be listed together.

If this is not the case, and there is more than one performing artist, each artist must be listed individually and assigned as Primary.

10. Generic artists. Generic artists such as “Chorus”, “Orchestra” and “Singer” are not accepted in any genre. The artist names should be specific to a person, a group or band, a show or a production.

11. Original artist name in the artist field. For karaoke, tribute, orgel, parody, cover albums and ringtones, the name of the original artist must not be displayed in any artist field.