If I change my artist name will I lose placement in the Spotify branded playlists I'm currently in?

[jaywarrenn]

Hi Community,

I'm wondering what are the potential disadvantages when changing my artist name. I'm currently featured in a few Spotify Editorial Playlists, and I'm wondering what will happen to those placements when I change my name. Will my songs be removed for those playlists? I know my followers will be transferred over, and my monthly listeners will be rebuilt. Are there any other logistic downsides on changing my artist name?

[MattSuda]

Changing your artist name is a mess. Things have to be updated and some stats will end up having to be rebuilt if they can't be transfered over.

I recommend reaching out to your distributor to see how they handle name changes. Sometimes everything on Spotify can be moved over smoothly to the new artist name. Other streaming services will of course have different rules set up.

In some cases you will need to redeliver your content to Spotify with new releases using the new artist name.

From: https://sites.google.com/spotify.com/spotifyhub/troubleshooting

REDELIVERY

Q: We have switched distributor of our content. How do we keep the play counts when we redeliver through our new distributor? How do we ensure tracks in users’ playlists will become the new version?

First, re-upload the new content with identical audio and metadata, e.g. the same audio, ISRC, track title, artist name and duration. The new version can have a different UPC.

To avoid content availability gaps, take down the old version a couple of days after the new version goes live. Providing you deliver the new version with the same metadata, tracklinking will be successful and play counts will be transferred across.

TRACKLINKING

Tracklinking is specifically designed to provide a better user experience by removing duplicate tracks from the charts section, popular tracks section, and avoiding gaps in playlists due to territorial availability. Tracks that are linked will subsequently share a play count.

Tracklinking is never 100% guaranteed. When attempting to tracklink two versions of a recording, the metadata should be as identical as possible (i.e. duration, title, version, artist, ISRC), and the audio used should be the exact same. Chances of tracklinking are decreased with each differing piece of metadata between the two recordings. New audio fingerprints create new Spotify recording groups, which have a unique play count. This is calculated for each different recording of a composition.

To ensure there is no disruption in service please ensure all replacement content is:

1. Exactly the same as the initial delivery in regards to track audio, ISRC, product type (single/album) and metadata to encourage tracklinking.

2. Delivered at least 5 business days in advance of the set live date.

To minimize disruption in user experience:

Please wait until both releases are live in the client, and see if they have linked by comparing the play counts prior to removing the old content.

Alternatively, if you wish to remove the old content at the same time the new content goes live, please make sure the new content has an end date which matches the live date of the new content, or a takedown to take effect the same day as the new content goes live.

Disclaimer: please note that during this period of transition there may be some fluctuation in the popular tracks section of your artist page. This is normal and you will find that popular tracks will normalize within 72 hours of the new content being live on the client.