Brackets in a song title look like a small detail, yet they cause a large share of the title edits requested during review. The rule underneath is simple: in most cases you don't type the brackets yourself. The store builds them from separate fields, and your job is to put each piece of information in the right one.
Who actually adds the brackets
A track on a store page is assembled from three fields: the title, the version and the artist roles. If Ivy Lane releases a remix of "Low Tide" by Theo Marsh with a featured vocal from Ivy, the form looks like this:
- Title: Low Tide
- Version: Theo Marsh Remix
- Primary artist: Ivy Lane. Featured artist: a separate field for the guest, if there is one.
The store then displays it in its own style: one shows the version in round brackets, another switches to square brackets for a second tag, a third puts it after a dash.
What goes wrong is filling a field and then typing the same thing into the title as well. The result is Low Tide (Acoustic) (Acoustic) or a guest name shown twice. If you catch yourself typing a bracket into the title field, ask which field that text really belongs to.
What counts as a version
A version describes how this recording differs from the original recording of the same song. The common ones:
- Remix, with the remixer's name: Theo Marsh Remix
- Acoustic or Unplugged
- Live, or Live at plus the place, if the concert itself matters
- Radio Edit and Extended Mix
- Instrumental and A Cappella
- Sped Up and Slowed
- Remastered, sometimes with the year of the new master
- Demo, for an early recording released on purpose
In electronic music, Original Mix is used when the same release also carries other mixes. In other genres the original needs no label at all. An empty version field on the original is correct, not a missing detail.
Brackets that don't belong anywhere
Some text looks like a version tag but isn't information about the recording. Stores usually ask for it to be removed:
- Official Audio, Official Video, Visualizer
- Prod. by and the producer's name, which belong in the credits
- New, Single, Exclusive, Hit, Premiere
- the year on its own, when nothing was remastered
- the artist's own name or social handle
- tags aimed at search, such as a genre name or a mood
A quick test: if the text would be just as true of every song you've released, it isn't a version.
When the brackets are part of the title
Sometimes a bracket really is part of the song's name. A songwriter may give a song a subtitle, the way classical works and older songs often have one. If the bracketed words appear on the cover, in the lyrics booklet and in every announcement, they are part of the title, and they go in the title field.
Numbered songs work the same way. Low Tide, Pt. 2 is a separate song, not a version of Low Tide, so "Pt. 2" stays in the title. A track called Intro is simply titled Intro.
The question to ask is whether another recording of this exact song exists that this one differs from. If yes, you're describing a version. If no, you're naming a song.
Several tags on one track
When a track has both a guest and a version, keep each in its own field and let the store order them. The usual display order is the featured artist first, then the version.
Two rules prevent most mix-ups:
- A remixer is not a featured artist unless they also perform on the track. Credit them as remixer and name them in the version.
- Release-level tags are separate from track-level tags. A release that gathers several remixes is usually called Low Tide (Remixes), while each track inside keeps its own version, such as Theo Marsh Remix. A deluxe album keeps the album's title and adds Deluxe or Deluxe Edition as the release version.
Capitalisation and language across your catalogue
Each title follows the capitalisation rules of its own language. An English title is usually written in title case. Azerbaijani and Russian titles normally capitalise only the first word and proper names. Turkish spelling capitalises every word in the name of a work. On an album with songs in several languages, each track follows its own rule; nobody expects them to match each other.
Version words need one decision of their own. English tags such as Remix, Live and Acoustic are understood everywhere, and many submission forms offer them as a list. If you prefer the local word, for example a Russian or Turkish equivalent, check that the store accepts it and then use it every single time. Mixing the two across a catalogue looks careless and makes versions harder to find.
Finally, keep the original title spelled identically across every version, including special letters and punctuation. Low Tide and Low tide can look like two different songs to a matching system.
A check before you submit
- The title field holds only the song's name.
- Every recording that differs from the original has a version; the original has none.
- Remixers are credited as remixers, guests as featured artists.
- No bracket in the title repeats something another field already says.
- The text on the cover matches the title and version exactly.
When you fill these fields in the CULT portal, review will flag a version typed into the title, but catching it yourself saves a round of changes and keeps your release date safe.