Going through so many great promos I’ve downloaded the last months. And sadly, so many with bad metadata. Labels, when you are more likely than ever to lose money on a release, why is there such an avoidance of doing such an easy thing to better the chances breaking even?

For example, if that track gets played on radio and they submit a tracklisting, „A1_24bitMaster“ is not going to get anyone paid, and it’s possible the artist won’t even get listed if it’s an automated service. If it‘s not an exact match, the systems can’t distribute royalties.

Also, INCLUDE THE ARTWORK! More often than not, you’ll pay the graphic designer more than you pay the artist, and you’ll pay the promo service more than you pay anyone...why would you promote an unfinished product? „it’s not a product, it’s art“ is often an excuse for laziness.

You just never know where the music will end up. Most people don’t even know exactly the people their music is being promoted to. No artwork? No name? You just made it one step closer to impossible to get that review that you always complain about never getting.

I can’t tell you how often I listen to/review promos live on my Twitch channel, & the chat asks me to make the screen bigger with the music playing. They like to see the artwork, the artist name, & to my surprise, they even like reading that text we were certain no one ever read.

New artists: join an artist rights association, and register every track you ever release. If you’re in the US, joining BMI costs nothing. I’m a small artist, and I’ve paid my rent multiple times in my career with money I didn’t know existed but BMI did.

Music venues and radio have to pay their fees to those organizations no matter what, so you’re not defending the underground by not joining...you’re just guaranteeing that Katy Perry and Kanye West get paid for all the underground music being played at your favorite places.

One last thing: if you want to promo exclusively the lossless route, using AIFF files instead of WAV files guarantees that most of the time the metadata will transfer over Id converted to an MP3.