Metadata is the text that travels with your music: who made it, what it's called, which version it is. Stores use it to file your release on the right profile and to display it next to everything else. Get it wrong and you end up with a song on someone else's page, a title stores refuse, or a remix nobody can tell apart from the original.
Here is a typical first attempt, and what it should look like:
- Before: artist SOL MAREN official, title Night Drive (Official Audio) prod. by K-Lab NEW 2026
- After: artist Sol Maren, title Night Drive, producer credit K-Lab
Everything that was removed either belongs in another field or doesn't belong anywhere.
The artist name: pick one spelling and keep it
Your artist name is how platforms connect a new release to your existing profile. Change it slightly and the system may treat you as a new artist. "Sol Maren", "Sol Maren Music" and "SolMaren" can easily end up as three separate profiles.
A few rules that save trouble later:
- Write the name exactly the same way on every release, including spaces, capitals and special letters.
- Don't add words like "official", "music" or "band" unless they really are part of the name.
- One artist per artist field. If two people perform together, add each as a separate artist in the right role rather than typing "Sol Maren & Teo" as one name.
- Before your first release, search the big platforms for your name. If another artist already uses it, now is the time to adjust it, not after you've printed merch.
The title: only the title
A track title should contain the name of the song and nothing else. Stores reject or ask you to edit titles that include:
- "Official Audio", "Official Video", "Exclusive", "New", a year, or "Free download";
- the producer's name ("prod. by…"), which goes into the credits;
- the artist name repeated inside the title;
- track numbers, file names like "final_v3", hashtags or emojis;
- featured artists typed into the title instead of the featured artist field.
For a single, the release title is usually the same as the track title. For an EP or album, the release title is the project's name, and each track keeps its own clean title.
The version field: what makes this recording different
When a song exists in more than one form, the difference goes into the version field, not into the main title. Stores then show it in brackets after the title, so listeners can see at a glance which one they are playing.
Common versions:
- Remix, usually with the remixer's name: Night Drive (K-Lab Remix)
- Live, for concert recordings
- Acoustic or Unplugged
- Radio Edit and Extended Mix
- Instrumental
- Sped Up or Slowed, for those popular alternative versions
- Remastered, for a new master of an older release
Two mistakes come up again and again. The first is putting the version in both places, which leads to titles like Night Drive (Acoustic) (Acoustic). The second is leaving the version empty on a remix, so that two different recordings appear under exactly the same name. The original version needs no label at all.
Capitalisation and spelling
Capitalisation follows the conventions of the language the title is written in. English titles are usually written in title case, with every main word capitalised and short words like "of", "the" or "in" in lower case unless they come first. Many other languages, Azerbaijani and Russian among them, normally capitalise only the first word and proper names, while Turkish spelling rules capitalise every word in the title of a work.
What stores generally don't accept is capitalisation used as decoration: titles written entirely in capital letters, or entirely in lower case, just for style. Some long-established artist names are stylised, but for a new release, plain spelling is the safer route. Rules here change from time to time, so check the platforms' current guidelines if you want something unusual.
Use the real alphabet of the language. If your title has letters like ş, ç or ə, write them properly rather than replacing them with Latin look-alikes, and do it the same way every time.
Keep a metadata sheet
The easiest way to stay consistent is a simple document for each artist: the exact spelling of the name, the real names of writers and producers, the usual genre, and the titles of past releases with their versions. Before every upload, copy from it instead of typing from memory. If you work with a team, share it with everyone: the manager, the producer and the cover designer should all use the same spelling, because the text on the artwork has to match the metadata too.
In the CULT portal you fill in these fields for every track, and review will ask for a change if something doesn't follow store conventions. It's still faster to get it right before you submit than to fix it afterwards, because once a release is live, metadata changes take time to reach every platform.