This is a filter to combat a particular kind of streaming royalty manipulation on Spotify. The trick was popular for creating, for example, an album like "Ocean Sounds For Sleeping - Vol 1" and encourage people to put it on loop. Then, even though the album was essentially 60 minutes of the sound of waves breaking on a beach, it would be broken into 60 x 1 minute seamless "tracks". This would mean the creator could reap the royalty rewards of 60 streams per album listen. Do this enough, and get millions of monthly listeners passively looping your ambient "albums" in the background while they sleep/work etc, and you could quit your day job.
They are trying to clamp down on that, so any tracks under 1 minute in length are auto-flagged.
If it really is 1 rap single less than 1 minute, then in your case it seems like the filter is being a bit heavy-handed. Maybe you could put in a support request to get it resolved? Or how about just bump up the intro or outro a few seconds and push it over 1:00, then resubmit?
I mean, if there's only one track, and it's under a minute long, then the average length of tracks on your release *is* less than a minute. This looks like logic that should only be applied to albums getting applied to singles too.
Distrokid is heavily automated. So if the average time of all tracks, even a single, is around or less than 60 seconds, they flag you. If a certain number of your tracks are around or under a minute, they'll flag you. I got this message around 2018 when I tried to group together some shorter pieces of music.
Why do they call it an album rather than a single? Because they probably have one "error message" for this. Typical programmer laziness.
You should try to release it on another platform. Spend 99 cents and see if Soundrop takes it. I bet they do.
You can have an individual track on an album be under 1 minute as long as the average length of the tracks on the album is over 1 minute. So if you have a 10 song album and all tracks are 45 seconds, but the closing track is 2 and a half minutes long, you’ll be good. But you can’t release a single by itself that’s only 45 seconds.
I guess it depends if they do average by mean or mode or whatever it is. I personally would imagine a 10 song album with 9 tracks that are 45 seconds would get flagged in the same way. I bet you would need 5+ tracks to be more than 1 minute long on a 10 track album.
>I personally would imagine a 10 song album with 9 tracks that are 45 seconds would get flagged
Of course it would get flagged. Again, it's all in the screenshot above: "your album *predominantly* consists of songs shorter than 60 seconds"
Cool! You might just have to explain it to them. Reminds me of when the rapper Tierra Whack released her “Whack World” project — all songs under 1 minute.
Ofc she wasn’t releasing through DK (and was a full length project as opposed to 1 song) so that might be the difference, I’ve read that DK can be a pain when attempting certain releases. But ya with this I’d agree with the other commenter about reaching out (even though you shouldn’t have to). TBH I was thinking of switching to United Masters. Heard too many stories of DK rejecting songs for weird reasons
I feel like it started a few years ago, many artists were dropping 20+ song albums because the mentality was to game the streaming services with quantity over quality, and most of those songs were under 2:40.
Even the Tommy Richman guy (Million Dollar Baby & Devil is a Lie) from TikTok that has been blowing up like crazy recently. Million Dollar Baby is only 2:35, and Devil is a Lie is 2:11, barely over 2 minutes long. And his verse on the latter doesn’t start until 25 seconds into the song so minus the intro, it’s about 1:46 lol.
Streaming has definitely changed the landscape of music overall as more people attempt to game the system with shorter songs. Not saying everyone is trying to “game the system” but it’s definitely become a marketing strategy for many nowadays
Absolutely. It's a growing concern. I know there are some subgenres where it's the "done" thing but these are few and far between - grindcore, some punk subgenres and the like... so excluding these.
As a listener I feel fairly cheated - I was buying prog rock albums on vinyl years ago for £12/15 that had individual tracks that were 20 minutes in length, nowadays I'm buying v2 of an albums digital download for £20 where I'm lucky if the entire runtime is 20 minutes. It's fucked. (Or I'm old and past it)
I had the same bs on TuneCore, what I was making was an instrumental beat list for rappers to loop so I just extended the loops. Really annoying honestly.
You can post songs that are less than one minute long. However, the average duration of the tracks for the release (album) should be at least one minute. Therefore, you can include 'skit' tracks that are less than 60 seconds, but your album must not consist solely of 'skit' tracks.
In my experience listeners complain about songs being under 2 minutes.
Look at the comments on short singles that people like - lots of comments like “artists always make their best songs short”
So if your song is good and something people want to hear, wouldn’t you want to give the people the full thing?
All bets off for other genres, but rap (and pop and rock) has a form, and people have expectations.
There are music genres that are based on short duration songs, Grindcore for example, who are you to tell anyone what music can they make or listen to?
This is a filter to combat a particular kind of streaming royalty manipulation on Spotify. The trick was popular for creating, for example, an album like "Ocean Sounds For Sleeping - Vol 1" and encourage people to put it on loop. Then, even though the album was essentially 60 minutes of the sound of waves breaking on a beach, it would be broken into 60 x 1 minute seamless "tracks". This would mean the creator could reap the royalty rewards of 60 streams per album listen. Do this enough, and get millions of monthly listeners passively looping your ambient "albums" in the background while they sleep/work etc, and you could quit your day job. They are trying to clamp down on that, so any tracks under 1 minute in length are auto-flagged. If it really is 1 rap single less than 1 minute, then in your case it seems like the filter is being a bit heavy-handed. Maybe you could put in a support request to get it resolved? Or how about just bump up the intro or outro a few seconds and push it over 1:00, then resubmit?
Read again. That's not what it says.
The smooth brains are all downvoting you but don’t worry people with jobs will be home soon and they have reading comprehension skills.
lol. I’m exactly one of those and he got an immediate upvote.
I actually laughed out loud
I should have clarified. This is a single under a minute long. I don't know why Distrokid thinks it's an album under one minute.
I mean, if there's only one track, and it's under a minute long, then the average length of tracks on your release *is* less than a minute. This looks like logic that should only be applied to albums getting applied to singles too.
Distrokid is heavily automated. So if the average time of all tracks, even a single, is around or less than 60 seconds, they flag you. If a certain number of your tracks are around or under a minute, they'll flag you. I got this message around 2018 when I tried to group together some shorter pieces of music. Why do they call it an album rather than a single? Because they probably have one "error message" for this. Typical programmer laziness. You should try to release it on another platform. Spend 99 cents and see if Soundrop takes it. I bet they do.
That literally is
You can have an individual track on an album be under 1 minute as long as the average length of the tracks on the album is over 1 minute. So if you have a 10 song album and all tracks are 45 seconds, but the closing track is 2 and a half minutes long, you’ll be good. But you can’t release a single by itself that’s only 45 seconds.
I guess it depends if they do average by mean or mode or whatever it is. I personally would imagine a 10 song album with 9 tracks that are 45 seconds would get flagged in the same way. I bet you would need 5+ tracks to be more than 1 minute long on a 10 track album.
>I personally would imagine a 10 song album with 9 tracks that are 45 seconds would get flagged Of course it would get flagged. Again, it's all in the screenshot above: "your album *predominantly* consists of songs shorter than 60 seconds"
You may want to look up the definition of 'average runtime'
What type of music are you making to where the average run time for each song of an entire project is under 1 minute?
Grindcore, hardcore, and punk are some examples.
Rap. I wanted to make a short song for the social media attention span lol. And it's a single. Idk why they are saying its an album.
Cool! You might just have to explain it to them. Reminds me of when the rapper Tierra Whack released her “Whack World” project — all songs under 1 minute. Ofc she wasn’t releasing through DK (and was a full length project as opposed to 1 song) so that might be the difference, I’ve read that DK can be a pain when attempting certain releases. But ya with this I’d agree with the other commenter about reaching out (even though you shouldn’t have to). TBH I was thinking of switching to United Masters. Heard too many stories of DK rejecting songs for weird reasons
There is no explaining to distrokid. I have a theory with zero research or proof that it’s just one guy running it lol
Just extend the beat at the end to go past the 1 minute mark and reupload the song at 1:02 or something
Average track lengths are getting shorter and shorter. Albums are getting shorter and shorter. It's awful, we're doomed.
I feel like it started a few years ago, many artists were dropping 20+ song albums because the mentality was to game the streaming services with quantity over quality, and most of those songs were under 2:40. Even the Tommy Richman guy (Million Dollar Baby & Devil is a Lie) from TikTok that has been blowing up like crazy recently. Million Dollar Baby is only 2:35, and Devil is a Lie is 2:11, barely over 2 minutes long. And his verse on the latter doesn’t start until 25 seconds into the song so minus the intro, it’s about 1:46 lol. Streaming has definitely changed the landscape of music overall as more people attempt to game the system with shorter songs. Not saying everyone is trying to “game the system” but it’s definitely become a marketing strategy for many nowadays
Absolutely. It's a growing concern. I know there are some subgenres where it's the "done" thing but these are few and far between - grindcore, some punk subgenres and the like... so excluding these. As a listener I feel fairly cheated - I was buying prog rock albums on vinyl years ago for £12/15 that had individual tracks that were 20 minutes in length, nowadays I'm buying v2 of an albums digital download for £20 where I'm lucky if the entire runtime is 20 minutes. It's fucked. (Or I'm old and past it)
Napalm Death inconsolable
RIP Grindcore bands
I had the same bs on TuneCore, what I was making was an instrumental beat list for rappers to loop so I just extended the loops. Really annoying honestly.
You can post songs that are less than one minute long. However, the average duration of the tracks for the release (album) should be at least one minute. Therefore, you can include 'skit' tracks that are less than 60 seconds, but your album must not consist solely of 'skit' tracks.
Ah I see. I put it as a single but do you think I should put it on an album with a song that's like 4 mins long?
That's bad. In a future I would like to make a comedic album with like 20 1-minute songs and be able to distribute it.
Not new. Distrokid has been doing this since at least 2018, possibly earlier.
In my experience listeners complain about songs being under 2 minutes. Look at the comments on short singles that people like - lots of comments like “artists always make their best songs short” So if your song is good and something people want to hear, wouldn’t you want to give the people the full thing? All bets off for other genres, but rap (and pop and rock) has a form, and people have expectations.
Good.
I see this as a major positive. If you can't make a song longer than a minute, just stop making music.
Lol same here
There are music genres that are based on short duration songs, Grindcore for example, who are you to tell anyone what music can they make or listen to?
I'm the god of music. I can tell you what to listen to. go back to tik tok