Putting music on spotify (edit - we put our new album and back catalogue on spotify!)

littlethoughts

We'd like to put our new album on spotify (I know, a bit late to the party...). Has anyone got any experience of doing this? It appears to me that the usual thing is to pay a fee to a distributor that serves spotify, amazon music etc. but is there a "best" way or any pitfalls to avoid?

EricTheWeary

He's not a frequent visitor but if you can summon @ramirez I know he has.

DiscoStu

We got our Speyside Sessions on Spotify via emubands.

 I got an email from Fandalism last week promoting their new DistroKid service which offers Spotify.

PolarityMan

We used cd baby. It cost about 50 dollars and gets you on all the main streaming and downloading services, spotify, deeper, Google music, Amazon, iTunes and loads of others

octatonic

The albums I am on or have produced were all put up with CD Baby,

geepers0677

We do it through Routenote

DulcetJones

geepers0677 said:

We do it through Routenote

So do I, they have a free option that includes iTunes and several other services.

monquixote

Am I right in thinking you have to own the copyright for any music you list? (so you couldn't put covers on there)

Deijavoo

I like Distrokid.

DulcetJones

monquixote said:

Am I right in thinking you have to own the copyright for any music you list? (so you couldn't put covers on there)

You are right.  If you do want to upload a cover you will have to pay the rights owner and clear some other hurdles, basically, I avoid it.

littlethoughts

Deijavoo said:

I like Distrokid.

That appears to be a good choice. The bad reviews seem to relate to things being taken down when copyright infringement notices are served to artists, and distrokid just right away takes things down without checking. They are also supposedly not the quickest at handing out royalties. but since we have the new album, a couple of back albums and even some old albums from old bands, it does seem like we would make the most of the unlimited uploads to make it worthwhile...

littlethoughts

And thanks for all the suggestions guys!

thomasross20

PolarityMan;961361" said:

We used cd baby. It cost about 50 dollars and gets you on all the main streaming and downloading services, spotify, deeper, Google music, Amazon, iTunes and loads of others

Did you register with PRS?

thomasross20

monquixote;961887" said:

Am I right in thinking you have to own the copyright for any music you list? (so you couldn't put covers on there)

For this reason I did not include the outro I wanted on my album - too much hassle.

Fyi I'll be using CDBaby.
Not sure whether to get some physical copies in addition to digital downloads

PolarityMan

thomasross20 said:

PolarityMan;961361" said:

We used cd baby. It cost about 50 dollars and gets you on all the main streaming and downloading services, spotify, deeper, Google music, Amazon, iTunes and loads of others

Did you register with PRS?

Nope, not unless they do it as part of th cdbaby signup anyway

EricTheWeary

So for $50 I could put recordings of me belching the national anthem on Spotify? Just for the satisfaction of seeing myself on Spotify. And then putting it on TheFB Spotify playlist of course. :-?

xsheq

littlethoughts said:

We'd like to put our new album on spotify (I know, a bit late to the party...). Has anyone got any experience of doing this? It appears to me that the usual thing is to pay a fee to a distributor that serves spotify, amazon music etc. but is there a "best" way or any pitfalls to avoid?

I did mine through tunecore. But why not use Bandcamp and ask people to pay what they want to DL the album? You'll probably get more money than streaming on Spotify and iTunes. I've not seen much revenue from streaming!

littlethoughts

sheq said:

littlethoughts said:

We'd like to put our new album on spotify (I know, a bit late to the party...). Has anyone got any experience of doing this? It appears to me that the usual thing is to pay a fee to a distributor that serves spotify, amazon music etc. but is there a "best" way or any pitfalls to avoid?

I did mine through tunecore. But why not use Bandcamp and ask people to pay what they want to DL the album? You'll probably get more money than streaming on Spotify and iTunes. I've not seen much revenue from streaming!

I don't care about making money (since we have very low expectations in that regard), it's more about ease of playing for most people. And spotify, straight to laptop, mobile or tablet is far simpler than buying an album on band camp. At the end of the day, most punters there to see their mates band won't download your album, but they might listen to a few tracks on spotify when checking out the bill. Also we've had a band camp for a few years anyway and basically made less money through that than from paypal donations and downloads from our website

Ramirez

EricTheWeary said:

He's not a frequent visitor but if you can summon @ramirez I know he has.

Hello!
Haven't been here a while... came across a post referring to an album I'd produced while searching for reviews, and then saw this notification... I haven't read the rest of the thread so sorry if I'm repeating.

The label I run uses www.believedigital.com - they take a % of sales and ensure that all our stuff is up on Spotify, iTunes etc.

littlethoughts

So we ended up using distrokid and it was pretty simple. If you fancy a listen you can find the new album "The agreer" by actual bird, as well as the old ones. Not done a proper social media announcement for it or anything like that, but feel free to have a listen.