3 Reasons A Streaming Platform Will Reject Music

As music streaming's heavy hitters start to get into the distribution business, some artists are getting kicked to the curb, and left wondering why their music didn't make the cut. Here we look at some of the main reasons your music might be getting rejected by major streaming platforms, and what you can do to fix it.

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Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

There are more and more ways to get your music on a popular streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music. Most indie artists use a distributor like TuneCore, CD Baby or Distrokid, but some streaming platforms (Spotify) and now beginning to act as distributors to other services as well. That’s all well and good when the system works, but sometimes your music gets rejected and you’re left scratching your head as to why it happened. Here are some typical reasons:

Metadata/Artwork Mismatches

Believe it or not, what’s on the artwork of your album or single has to match the metadata you supply. A misspelling in the metadata like a typo could be enough cause for a rejection. Using the album artwork for a single is a no-no because they may have different titles. Just remember that your artwork has a big bearing on your submission.

Forbidden Inclusions

Streaming platforms are somewhat picky about the things they don’t want you to submit either in the metadata or on the artwork (watch out for this one). Logos from companies that sponsor you or from streaming services, contact info, and social media addresses and handles won’t fly. This means that you might have to create a separate simplified piece of artwork just for streaming service submission to be sure that your music submission isn’t rejected.

Forgetting Featured Artists

Most music services are really trying to get all the information as accurate and complete as possible these days, and that includes featured players. If a player is mentioned in the artwork, but not included in the metadata, that can be cause for rejection. Give those players the credit they deserve everywhere you can.

There are also a few other reasons, like sound quality, too many similar releases, and poor quality artwork that can cause your music to be rejected on some distributors and platforms.

Finally, remember that streaming services are somewhat slow at posting your music due to the enormous number of submissions that they receive. It can take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, so if you have a drop date for your next release, be sure to leave plenty of time for everything to go live before pushing out those press releases.