QUESTION ABOUT RELEASING A SINGLE FROM AN ALBUM BEFORE THE ALBUM COMES OUT

[nathanslonaker]

So basically, my band RELIC released 1 single called "Winter" on April 21st, with its own "Winter" single 'album' cover. On May 18th, we're planning to release our full 5 song EP, including that song called "Winter". 

My question is, when we release that EP, will the single of Winter we released merge with the EP Winter? It's the exact same file. 

For example: Ed Sheeran released "Shape of You" as a single, with it's own Shape of You single cover and everything. When "Divide", the album came out, on his "most popular songs" on spotify, the "Divide" album cover now shows next to Shape of You. 

Will this happen to me as well - will the EP version of Winter replace the single? I don't want there to be 2 seperate of the exact same song...

I uploaded using Distrokid. 

Thanks!

[Bethany_Dawn]

Hi @nathanslonaker and welcome to the Community! 🙂
I highly recommend you check out the web page for Spotify For Artists located here. It covers a wide range of topics/questions artists might have.

For your particular issue, it looks like you may need to get in touch with Distrokid directly to make sure the song doesn't duplicate. They would be the ones handling the submission to Spotify. I copied over the most relevant topic Q/A I could find offhand and I hope it helps point you in the right direction. Good luck!

How can I resubmit a song for distribution?

If your label handles music distribution, please work with them to make an update to the metadata through the normal release process. If you’re not the artist that distributed the music, please reach out to the data ‘source’ (listed at the bottom of each credit) to have them update.

If you uploaded your music yourself via an aggregator, you may need to re-upload your album to make the correction. Please reach out to your aggregator for assistance in doing so. We know that some aggregators don’t yet have support for credits, which is why we’re working to improve the process in the future to make it easier to get your credits onto Spotify.

[Soundofus]

Welcome @nathanslonaker to the community,

Just to complete the previous answer, I suggest you don't remove the single already there.

- First of all, as I can see on your profile, the song has already been added to different playlists. As each song as a different URI, if you remove it, the song will disappear from the playlists. The version in the EP, even if it's the same, will have its own URI, different of the single.

- Users have different way to listen, some prefer listen a single rather than a full EP or album.

- If you remove it, you will lose the benefit of your, actually, over 8,000 plays,

which is important for knowing what song(s) are the most listened.

So, I really suggest you let it as it.

twitter.com/soundofus

www.soundofus.com

[StarSplitter]

Is there a way to associate the two versions to consolidate the plays? What is they were to get another 8000 plays on the EP of Album version. Is there a way for the algorithms or curators to know there are really 16000 plays total for that song?

[Joshuaaa]

I'm also very curious about this...
I have a song from an old project that's approaching 4 million streams, planning on repackaging on an EP under my new project (different artist name), the only thing is it currently gets around 60 - 70,000 streams a month from all of the independent playlists its on, and I'd be really devestated if the song lost it's place in those playlists upon being re-released...

Would greatly appreciate any help or ideas!

[MelodicHouseFan]

Hey, before taking down the song you should upload it with your new release, so you have the song twice. It takes some time until Spitify matches them. After some days you can delete the first one. But you could also let the song there, as a single and on the EP or album. Strans will be combined.

[MelodicHouseFan]

It will show up as one song in your analytics.

[Joshuaaa]

Thank you for replying. Do you know if this is the case even if the song is re-released under a new artist name?

[Zarelli]

Hey Joshuaa,

did you ever find a solution to your problem? I too have the same issue and can't get a concrete answer.

[Bb100]

It's not guaranteed that Spotify merges a duplicate song. Chances are high when the uploaded files and all metadata submitted are identical, especially when submitting the ISRC of the song uploaded first together with the second upload (afaik numbers are aggregated on ISRC level). If the two versions differ, the numbers merge will most likely fail. I assume re-releasing the same song under a different artist name will hinder the streaming counts to aggregate. Also, as each song upload holds a unique URI and songs are added to playlists on URI level, deleting a duplicate song will kill it's URI thus have the according song disappear from the playlists