We’ve had our metadata standards included in the music submission guidelines up in our FAQ since the start, but we thought it was time to dive deeper and give you some examples of what we’re talking about! We asked some licensors we’ve enjoyed working with to let us use their songs as examples. Please note, however, the companies mentioned in the metadata text are not connected to this post.
I am going to continue today with an example of correct metadata for a cover. In this particular example, Gravelpit Music sent me a track for us to dissect.
Supe Troop recommends that you include as much information as possible in the metadata of all your digital music submissions. A lot of the fields are self-explanatory, but here are some helpful details specifically regarding metadata for a cover recording. If you want to know about all the fields, please see the complete metadata standards.
- Song Name – As this song is a cover, cite that in the Song Name field as “Song Name (Original artist cover)”
- Composer – As this is a cover, the composers are the same as the original release.
- Rating – Do NOT include rating. Leave this empty so music supervisors can use it themselves if they want.
- Grouping – Company clearing the master side (% controlled M) / Company clearing pub side (% controlled S). Although not the case in this example, it is possible for the publisher of the original song to send a cover version that they also control. In that case, the sender has the song one-stop and would state so here [e.g. Gravelpit Music (one-stop)]. Please note: The Grouping section includes the company that is the contact the music supervisor is dealing with, not the actual cue sheet publisher name (if they differ).
- Comments – Contact info for licensing party.
- Album – Album name, if it exists.
- Disc Number – Include if you have it, not required.
- Track – Include if you have it, not required.
- Artwork – Include if you have it; we love to see it, but it is not required.
We’ll be back soon with our next example! Our previous post in this series discusses metadata for a recording of a public domain composition.