Title guidelines: How to format songs, albums and artist names

Title guidelines: How to format songs, albums and artist names

CONNECT maps musical entities based on unique IDs and metadata. This starts with registered ISRCs and ICPNs for Recordings and Products. From there, we can group related entities, track combined activity and build a database of albums, songs and artists.


Our data providers send us titles, artist names and other metadata. This information helps sort or “merge” songs and album products into the right Dashboards. 


Sometimes, titling and metadata errors hinder this process. Incorrectly submitted song titles, album titles and artist credits can cause unwanted merges (unrelated items combined under one title) or splits (related items divided into separate songs/albums). 

Potential merging issues

1) Splits that should be merged. Significant name and title variations can create parallel or orphaned database entries that prevent complete activity tracking (ex. a mistitled album UPC whose sales can’t roll up into the main Release Group).


2) Merges that should remain separate. Failure to differentiate ISRCs and ICPNs can combine song recordings and album releases that should be tracked separately (ex. a major remix that’s chart-eligible on its own, a new deluxe edition of a deep-catalog album). 


3) Misattribution within higher-level entities. Naming and titling errors can assign aggregated activity to the wrong Dashboard.

  1. Submitting The Clash as “Clash, The” on ISRCs and ICPNs briefly caused some of The Clash’s activity to be tracked with the discography of an unrelated Thai rock group called Clash, singular.


 Use this guide to facilitate accurate title merging.




Back to Registration and Reporting 

Best practices

In general, we advise: 

  • Report album and song titles exactly as they appear on officially released products.

  • Preserve the complete official title as a “base” title on all song ISRCs or album ICPNs.  

  • Use parentheses or brackets to append versions, editions or other information to base titles.

  • Don’t abbreviate, drop the “The” or remove any other words. 

  • Don’t use commas in artist names or enter an artist’s last name first.  

  • Identify Main Artists, Collaborations and Featured/Remix artists consistently.

  • Fill out metadata fields other than title and artist: Genre, Format, Config., etc.*

  • Review Billboard eligibility rules for titling (Song and Album Merge Guidelines).


The above will ensure proper grouping and merging in most cases. 

If not, we can merge and un-merge items manually, modify titles or correct data to achieve proper grouping. Learn how to request data corrections here. 



*Legacy "Format" and "Config." fields describe Release Type and Product Format in CONNECT.

Matching and merging

Our programming logic prioritizes ID matching and artist linking over title matching. The database only groups entities with the same Main Artist and compatible ISRC/ICPN relationships. (It won’t accidentally assign a recording of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” to the Lana Del Rey album/song of the same name, for example). 

How it works: Main Artist and title matching

The below processes happen automatically. 


Data ingestion 

Our data providers report streaming, song sales, product sales and Airplay activity associated with ISRCs (Recordings) and ICPNs (Products) via secure file transfer protocol. These files include display titles, artist names and other metadata (release date, platform ID) for each item. 


CONNECT ingests provider files and extracts IDs, titles and artist names. Our programming logic can then match provider-submitted titles with existing database entries based on ID linking, artist mapping and title similarity.

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Artist matching

CONNECT uses artist IDs and provider-submitted artist names to identify a Main Artist for each ISRC/ICPN. 


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Title matching 

If ISRCs/ICPNs share a Main Artist (based on artist ID or display name), we apply string matching logic to title text. 


When two or more display titles meet our merging criteria (see below), the database groups ISRCs into Songs and ICPNs into Releases/Release Groups based on title similarity.





 

Title matching

We merge:

  1. Titles within character thresholds. Our threshold for splitting items based on title depends on title length. 
    1. 4 or fewer characters: exact match required
    2. 5-8 characters: 1-character difference allowed
    3. 9-12 characters: 2-character difference allowed
    4. 12+ characters: 4-character difference allowed
  1. Any capitalization. The CONNECT database and UI are not case-sensitive. Uppercase and lowercase characters are treated equally. 
  1. Common special characters. Our matching logic normalizes titles by ignoring most special characters, accents (ex. e / è / é) and non-Latin characters. 

  1. Parentheses and brackets. CONNECT displays (parentheticals) and [brackets] on the front end and ignores them on the back end. Use them to label titles/versions/editions while retaining song and album groupings. 

    1. Greatest Hits / Greatest Hits (Reissue) [Deluxe] = merged

    2. Man’s Best Friend / Man’s Best Friend [D2C Vinyl] = merged

    3. Suffragette City / Suffragette City (Live Santa Monica ‘72) = merged



Artist matching

We merge:

  1. Titles with the same Main Artist(s). The Main Artist (or sole artist) listed for a Recording or Product must match the parent Song or Release. ISRCs/ICPNs with different Main Artists will be split into separate Dashboards. 
  1. Artist IDs. CONNECT maps artists using ISNI and other identifiers. Include artist IDs with metadata submissions to facilitate artist linking.
  1. Featured and Remix artists. As long as Main Artists match, additional artist credits won’t prevent an ISRC from merging into the parent Song (provided titles meet our criteria). 
  1. Mapped or unmapped artists. If a provider-submitted artist name doesn’t match an existing artist in the CONNECT database, we still track activity for ISRCs/ICPNs and create Song and Release Group Dashboards. Register new artists here. In the meantime, use these A&R tips to aggregate and track unmapped releases.

Common splits

These issues can cause CONNECT to mismatch Dashboards, create orphans or split items into too many Songs and Release Groups. 

  1. Significant title variations. If names or titles differ beyond our character thresholds (see above), CONNECT will split them. All titles with more than 4 characters of difference will be split.
  1. Extra words. See above. Character thresholds apply to title length. Adding “Live,” “EP,” “Deluxe” or similar to the end of a title will likely split it from the parent entity (unless you use parentheses). 
  1. Partial or truncated titles. See above. Some provider-submitted titles are partially cut off and can’t merge. 
  1. Non-Latin characters. Titles translated into non-Latin scripts or that include any non-Latin text don’t automatically merge with the originals. 
  1. Titles with different Main Artists. In brief: Main Artists must match to merge. 
  1. Artist names with commas. CONNECT reads commas as separators. Adding commas to the display artist field will divide artist names and band names into two or more Main Artists. Without manual intervention, entering "Grande, Ariana" in the artist field will cause CONNECT to identify two Main Artists, "Grande" and "Ariana."
  1. Collaborations without commas. Collaborations (in which both artists are credited as co-performers on a single or album, not song-level features or recording-level remixes) can be entered as a list of two or more artist names separated by commas. This helps CONNECT parse the artists correctly and attribute activity to both Dashboards. 
    1. Ex. "Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars," not "Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars"
  1. Features or remixes entered as collaborations. Featured and remix artists aren't Main Artists. Adding a remix artist or "feat." credit as a co-artist or collaboration for an ISRC may split the recording into a new Song. 


More examples


MERGED

✔ The Rolling Stones / THE ROLLING STONES / the rolling stones

✔ Short n’ Sweet / short n sweet / Short n’ Sweet (Deluxe)

✔ Little Saint Nick / Little Saint Nick (Mono)

✔ Beyonce / Beyoncé

✔ New Album / New Album (D2C 2LP) / New Album [Japan Import CD]

✔ Masters of War / Masters of War (Live at Town Hall, New York, NY - April 1963)

✔ Untitled 01 / Untitled 02 / Untitled 40 / Untitled 40 (Instrumental)

✔ Ultimate Collection - Volume 1 / Ultimate Collection - Volume 2 

✔ "Midnight Sun" by Zara Larsson / "Midnight Sun (Muni Long Remix)" by Zara Larsson


NOT MERGED

✘ Clash, The / The Clash 

✘ Carpenter, Sabrina / Sabrina Carpenter 

✘ Espresso / Espresso - EP / The Espresso Remixes

✘ The Life of a Showgirl / LIFE,THE SHOWGIRL YM(D2C) / LIFE OF A SHOW

✘ New Album / New Album D2C L/XL / NEW ALBUM TARGET EXCL VIOLET LP

✘ Vampire / Vampire - Live From Glastonbury (A BBC Recording)

✘ "Midnight Sun" by Zara Larsson / "Midnight Sun" by Zara Larsson & Muni Long

✘ When the Pawn… / When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Th



 


What if I don’t want something to merge? 

If display title issues cause unwanted merges or otherwise impede tracking for your assets, contact Luminate Operations at music.referencedata@luminatedata.com. We’ll manually un-group items or provide a modified title to prevent merging. 

"Accidental" merges

Sometimes, artists deliberately release songs or albums with similar titles. Some of these are so close that they fall short of our character thresholds and result in undesired merges. Let us know and we’ll fix it.

  • Pink Friday / Pink Friday 2

  • Ultimate Collection - Volume 1 / Ultimate Collection - Volume 2

  • Track 01 / Track 02 / Track 10*


*Do not submit album track lists this way. 

If those happen to be the actual titles, contact Operations to get ahead of it.




Manual splits

It may be necessary to track album reissues, remixes and alternate recordings separately for chart eligibility or other reasons. 


If you think this applies to one of your recordings or products, contact Operations to request a manual split. We will review these requests on a case-by-case basis and consult Billboard if necessary. 


In the meantime, please continue to follow our guidelines for title submission.






 



More style tips 

Common formatting dilemmas and how to handle them. 



Label live recordings with parentheses.

Live versions of a song can and should be specified in parentheses after the song title. Failure to label live recordings can impede activity tracking for studio albums, live albums and compilations. 

Live recording titles

To differentiate live ISRCs from studio versions, add live details to the end of the recording title in parentheses. “Live” is fine by itself, but venue/location/date are encouraged.


Song (Live) OR Song (Live at Venue, City, State - Date)


Examples

  1. Powerderfinger (Live)
  2. Lover (Live From Paris)
  3. Try a Little Tenderness (London) [Live]
  4. Red Headed Stranger (Live from Austin City Limits)
  5. Respect (Live / Set 2 / Friday, April 8, 1966)
  6. Maggie’s Farm (Live at Hughes Stadium, Ft. Collins, CO - May 1976)
What if I need to track a live song separately?

All titles, including live versions, should be submitted in the standard formats described here. This preserves song and artist linking in our database. Live ISRCs can always be tracked individually via Recording Dashboards. 


If needed, we can manually split live ISRCs into separate songs. Please contact Operations with live song split requests. 


 

Remember, CONNECT ignores parentheses when grouping items, but preserves them in the UI display. Live recordings, remixes, demos and other versions of a song can and should be specified with (parentheses) or [brackets] in the recording title.

Features, remixes and alternate mixes

Remixes or alternate versions with the same Main Artist + additional Featured Artists must include the featured artist’s name as follows.


Song (Featured Artist Name Remix) OR Song (ft. Featured Artist Name) 


Extended and dance mixes with no featured artist can also be indicated in parentheses/brackets. 


Examples

  1. The Fate of Ophelia (The Chainsmokers Remix)
  2. Please Please Please (ft. Dolly Parton)
  3. Physical (feat. Gwen Stefani) [Mark Ronson Remix]
  4. Get Me Bodied (Extended Mix)
  5. The Villest (with Erykah Badu)
  6. Midnight Sun (Adamusic Remix) [Extended]

Other recording details

Feel free to label demos, music videos, lyric videos, acoustic versions, mono/stereo recordings, remasters and similar. This can be useful for tracking at the ISRC level.


Examples

  1. Little Saint Nick [Mono]
  2. About a Girl (Live Acoustic)
  3. Fame is a Gun (Official Video)
  4. The Fate of Ophelia (Alone In My Tower Acoustic Version)
  5. My Sweet Lord (2014 Remaster)
  6. Ohio (Single Version) [Stereo]
  7. All Things Must Pass (Day 1 Demo) [Take 1]
  8. Mississippi (Outtake from ‘Time out of Mind’ Sessions, Version 3)

 

Label release type and format (also in parentheses). 

See above. As with song recordings, album releases and individual products may include format information and other key details in the product title for tracking purposes. 

Deluxe and reissued album titles

Add (Deluxe), (Bonus Track Version), (Remastered) and similar to album versions as needed. 


Examples
  1. The Life of a Showgirl (Life is a Song Acoustic Version)
  2. All Things Must Pass (50th Anniversary)
  3. Smiley Smile (Mono & Stereo)

 

The more metadata, the better.

Register ISRCs, ICPNs and artists with all required metadata fields + as many optional fields as possible.



Don’t put last names first. 

Artists should be styled Firstname Lastname. (Or First Middle Last). Not “Lastname, Firstname.”



Don’t drop the “The.”

If album titles, song titles or musical groups start with “The” or other articles, include them. Do not reorder words or add comma separators. It’s The Band, not “Band, The.” 



Use Title Case, not ALL CAPS (please). 

Yes, our matching logic technically ignores capitalization. Still, for clarity and ease of interpretation we style artist names, song titles and album titles using title case capitalization. Title Case capitalizes the first letter of everything except “small words” like articles and short prepositions. (First and last words of a title should always be capitalized, however).



“Various Artists” is not an artist.

Don’t credit Thematic Multi Artist Compilations (i.e. movie soundtracks, Broadway cast recordings) to “Various Artists.” Include the title of the show or movie, the location and the year if applicable. 

✔ Wicked Original Broadway Cast

✔ The Phantom of the Opera Original London Cast

✔ The Lion King - 1994 Movie Cast

✔ West Side Story 2021 Film Cast



Lastly…


We’re here to help. 

Contact Luminate Operations at music.referencedata@luminatedata.com about “rulebreaking” titles, edge cases, errors, unique situations and titles that must or must not be merged. A member of the Ops team will respond within 3 business days. 










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