Fun fact: I worked at a medium-sized music distributor, and Apple actually gives distributors a "score" based on how close they are to the style guide.
If your score falls below a certain threshold the time between delivery of your content to Apple and when it goes on the store is delayed because of additional quality controls applied to your content.
If you have a good score, it will go live immediately (assuming it's release date is in the past).
Lots of software development at this company was driven directly by changes to this style guide, since iTunes / Apple music were such a huge portion of revenue.
> The spelling of an artist’s name must be correct and remain consistent across all content for that artist.
However, some artists change names. Famously Prince, became "The artist formerly known as Prince" and then Prince again, but appears to only exist on iTunes/Apple Music as Prince.
Meanwhile, Japanese artist Yumi Arai, changed her name to Yumi Matsutoya in 1976 after getting married and exists as two separate artists under former name and current name.
If a performer changes to using a nickname, say from Robert Johnson to Bobby Johnson, should they be listed separately?
If a band keeps the same personnel, music, etc. and changes only its name? What if they change one person, and the name change is for intellectual property reasons (e.g., the departed person owns rights to the original name)? What if they also were an acoustic folk band and plug in, switching to rock? To jazz? What if everything changes - personnel, music, etc. - except for the name? What if they retroactively rename the band or music for intellectual property reasons?
A small technicality, but I don't think he ever released under the name "the artist formerly known as Prince" but as the Love Symbol [0]. An example album being the Gold Experience [1].
However, some artists change names. Famously Prince, became "The artist formerly known as Prince" and then Prince again, but appears to only exist on iTunes/Apple Music as Prince.
The B-52's have been both "B-52's," and "The B-52's."
Prince made his name change as an artistic protest in the years before search engines. Apple is trying to encourage discoverability. Different incentives in different times. People are messy.
> Famously Prince, became "The artist formerly known as Prince"
Famously he did become, in public media, yes. To his frustration, as he kept telling everyone to stop calling him "artist formerly known..." until he gave up and went back to Prince.
Though in public media's defense, it's very hard to reference someone who literally had no name for a period of time.
I've seen a lot of artists that change either how their name is spelled or use a slightly differently name depending on the release. I've also seen some artists credit a song to be "X vs. Y", where X and Y were both different aliases of the same artist.
There's also artists that have many names that they perform under. The eurobeat scene is one that brings to mind immediately, since Giancarlo Pasquini aka Dave Rodgers also performs under the names "Derek Simon", "Robert Stone", "Patrick Hoolley", "Mario Ross", "Red Skins", "RCS", "Aleph", "The Big Brother" and "Thomas & Schubert".
Unless the artist is genuinely performing under different "personas" (sort of like how there are sometimes two-or-more distinct bands with the same members), you/iTunes will want all of the artist's albums grouped into a single album collection. And the artist's name happens to be sort key/grouping key for that album collection.
(The ARTISTSORT field exists, but old devices, e.g. original iPods, don't know about it, so digital distributors tend to eschew the use of it, instead using the regular artist field as the ARTISTSORT field.)
There’s no conflict here. The name of the artist with multiple names is decide for each release, and then the name is consistent within the releases that share the artist name.
I'd like music metadata that is universally compatible across systems and across time (e.g., 50 years from now). Is there any such standard? Apple's Style Guide is the most complete I've seen, which makes it useful - how closely does it match my needs?
In limited experience, just about the only standard metadata was album, track title, and artist (I forget the names of the exact fields). Not only do I want more, that works terribly for classical music where the artist could be the composer Wagner, the Chicago Symphony, conductor Solti, various soloists, etc.
You want ID3 tags [0], there is a composer and many more fields. They are supported by pretty much any media player. The only problem is that, as far as I know, there is no standard for multiple entries for a field (like artist) and delimiters might be different across software.
This is why I submitted today actually, I was looking around for a decent spec on how to tag my music collection and stumbled across this. If this could be adapted to ID3 or Vorbis comments, and also widely accepted by other players, it would be a dream.
One thing to consider is what you really mean when you say music metadata, because you didn't mention where you want to use or store this metadata. Are you talking about released music, or simply information about the work? Publishing info? And so on.
Classical isn’t really different. It’s just that we only listen to cover bands. :)
Modern works are also often composed by someone different than the performers. The style guide listed describes fields for a separate composer(s) as well.
There is such a thing - a digital metadata standard called DDEX [0]. I worked in streaming classical music for a while (engineering/ops) and we had 100,000s of large XML files to parse. They arrived with digital audio files and contained useful checksum data inside.
All of the information regarding licensing, streaming rights, composer, movement, and almost every piece of data regarding a song/work was included.
People often get frustrated that the famous and the rich are treated differently, but it's literally logistics at some point.
This happens for everything, for example Tesla for years had the domain TeslaMotors.com, and look at Musk describing him getting Tesla.com:
> "That took us 10 years to buy that Tesla.com domain," Musk said on the podcast. "That cost us like, $10 million."
> Musk said in 2018 on Twitter that it actually cost $11 million, and took an "amazing amount of effort," to get the domain name off Grossman.
So my overall conclusion from situations like that is, yes, we have to accept that while we're small, or even while we're "medium" we need to play by the rules for everyone else. If you grow up you don't have to.
Daft Punk also had to put up with lots of bullshit in their first years, you gotta presume. They've earned this little victory of having no face on the Apple Music account... :)
Creative artists tend to thrive on limitations. They use limitations to come up with inventive ways of expressing themselves despite and even through the limitations. So think about it like that, IMHO
I've seen a few fairly obscure theme bands on Apple Music that have primary photos including literal masks and the like. Are you sure you're running into 'picture without a face' and not rather 'picture not distinctively representing real people'?
> 1.10. Emojis. Do not use emojis in titles, artist names, lyrics, or other metadata.
I read this and thought that surely, in the year of our lord 2021, there must be a song or album title or even an artist name which is all emojis, how do they handle that?
But it seems like this is a pretty standard limitation across the industry[1].
As pointed out by oneplane in a separate comment, it's because the link points to the print version. An interactive version exists at https://help.apple.com/itc/musicstyleguide/ where the text is actually a link to the print version.
I'll give you, it's a little odd that it even appears on the print version, but not the worst thing in the world.
Because the link actually is to the print version of the document, there's a very strong argument to be made that that's effectively the subtitle of this specific version.
Oh, dear. There's a glaring style error in line 2 of this document.
It has quotation marks around "Print this Document". For no reason. That's not what quotation marks are for. That's not how anything works.
Oh, dear. There's a glaring style error in line 2 of this comment.
It has the punctuation on the outside of the quotation marks for no reason. That's not how punctuation works. That's not how anything works.
Protip: It should be "Print this Document." Period inside the quotation marks.
People on the internet see other people putting it on the outside, and monkey-see-monkey-do spreads. But look at any professionally typeset document, and you'll see it in its correct position.
(I hope you take this in the mirthful spirit in which it was intended. Also, Apple shouldn't have capitalized "Document," unless it was intended to be a subtitle. But I'm not sure what the purpose of that line is.)
As an former open format DJ with terabytes of music, I would have killed for this type of unified, thoughtful, and comprehensive music organization spec.
This has existed since iTunes started selling music, and formats like DDEX have existed for a long time to communicate this metadata between labels, distributors, and retailers in a standard way.
Sadly the metadata the consumer gets doesn't end up consistent because there's fragmentation between retailers (or if we're talking 10 years ago, p2p uploaders) on how to populate id3 tags etc.
The UX of Apple Music has always been shockingly bad as it's Apple. Most notable playing a playlist then going to play something else ..ugggh & omg!
More detailed example... my friend sends me a link to their playlist .. i click it .. it starts playing then when im done listening to a few songs its time for me to say hey siri play something outside of the playlist. When I do Apple Music pops up this message saying do you want to keep the playlist queued .. with two options "keep," or "clear," what im done with playing it .. i want to hear another song without having to mess with my phone/read or understand a message while driving. Just save this playlist for me and ill go back and play it later ... horrible and dangerous UX(annoying when not driving)! Spotify is totally different and does as expected!
A better UX is just play what I asked no stupid pop up and when I say Siri start XYZ playlist it re-starts it from beginning and or Hey Siri start XYZ playlist from last played song. That is a safer UX and isnt Apple Music usage 50% in the car?
Interestingly i see im being downvoted and upvoted .. would enjoy hearing others thoughts! Had a fun arguement with a friend about this!
You're likely being downvoted not because your discussion is without merit but rather because it has nothing to do with the submitted link. The submitted link is a guide for how to format and submit metadata for music files submitted to Apple Music and the iTunes store. It has nothing to do with the consumer's UX.
I looked at the print preview. It looks like when printing the web page, it includes section breaks for tidy formatting. Plus, the "Print this document" is hidden when printing. It looks like an instruction, but I'm not sure why it is in quotes.
[+] [-] seabrookmx|4 years ago|reply
If your score falls below a certain threshold the time between delivery of your content to Apple and when it goes on the store is delayed because of additional quality controls applied to your content.
If you have a good score, it will go live immediately (assuming it's release date is in the past).
Lots of software development at this company was driven directly by changes to this style guide, since iTunes / Apple music were such a huge portion of revenue.
[+] [-] PostThisTooFast|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wodenokoto|4 years ago|reply
However, some artists change names. Famously Prince, became "The artist formerly known as Prince" and then Prince again, but appears to only exist on iTunes/Apple Music as Prince.
Meanwhile, Japanese artist Yumi Arai, changed her name to Yumi Matsutoya in 1976 after getting married and exists as two separate artists under former name and current name.
[+] [-] wolverine876|4 years ago|reply
If a performer changes to using a nickname, say from Robert Johnson to Bobby Johnson, should they be listed separately?
If a band keeps the same personnel, music, etc. and changes only its name? What if they change one person, and the name change is for intellectual property reasons (e.g., the departed person owns rights to the original name)? What if they also were an acoustic folk band and plug in, switching to rock? To jazz? What if everything changes - personnel, music, etc. - except for the name? What if they retroactively rename the band or music for intellectual property reasons?
... as with every attempt to specify reality.
[+] [-] onorton|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://compote.slate.com/images/39fd61d7-da5c-4975-aad4-84e... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold_Experience
[+] [-] reaperducer|4 years ago|reply
The B-52's have been both "B-52's," and "The B-52's."
Prince made his name change as an artistic protest in the years before search engines. Apple is trying to encourage discoverability. Different incentives in different times. People are messy.
[+] [-] historyloop|4 years ago|reply
Famously he did become, in public media, yes. To his frustration, as he kept telling everyone to stop calling him "artist formerly known..." until he gave up and went back to Prince.
Though in public media's defense, it's very hard to reference someone who literally had no name for a period of time.
[+] [-] Hamuko|4 years ago|reply
There's also artists that have many names that they perform under. The eurobeat scene is one that brings to mind immediately, since Giancarlo Pasquini aka Dave Rodgers also performs under the names "Derek Simon", "Robert Stone", "Patrick Hoolley", "Mario Ross", "Red Skins", "RCS", "Aleph", "The Big Brother" and "Thomas & Schubert".
[+] [-] derefr|4 years ago|reply
(The ARTISTSORT field exists, but old devices, e.g. original iPods, don't know about it, so digital distributors tend to eschew the use of it, instead using the regular artist field as the ARTISTSORT field.)
[+] [-] 1123581321|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umisays|4 years ago|reply
Spotify has two entries, one for "Mos Def" and one for "Yasiin Bey" even though they are the same person.
[+] [-] wolverine876|4 years ago|reply
In limited experience, just about the only standard metadata was album, track title, and artist (I forget the names of the exact fields). Not only do I want more, that works terribly for classical music where the artist could be the composer Wagner, the Chicago Symphony, conductor Solti, various soloists, etc.
[+] [-] Semaphor|4 years ago|reply
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3
[+] [-] gerjomarty|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dangravell|4 years ago|reply
You might find the MusicBrainz style guidelines useful: https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style
WRT classical: https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Classical
[+] [-] kube-system|4 years ago|reply
Modern works are also often composed by someone different than the performers. The style guide listed describes fields for a separate composer(s) as well.
[+] [-] comprev|4 years ago|reply
All of the information regarding licensing, streaming rights, composer, movement, and almost every piece of data regarding a song/work was included.
[0] https://ddex.net/
[+] [-] drcongo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] historyloop|4 years ago|reply
This happens for everything, for example Tesla for years had the domain TeslaMotors.com, and look at Musk describing him getting Tesla.com:
> "That took us 10 years to buy that Tesla.com domain," Musk said on the podcast. "That cost us like, $10 million."
> Musk said in 2018 on Twitter that it actually cost $11 million, and took an "amazing amount of effort," to get the domain name off Grossman.
So my overall conclusion from situations like that is, yes, we have to accept that while we're small, or even while we're "medium" we need to play by the rules for everyone else. If you grow up you don't have to.
Daft Punk also had to put up with lots of bullshit in their first years, you gotta presume. They've earned this little victory of having no face on the Apple Music account... :)
Creative artists tend to thrive on limitations. They use limitations to come up with inventive ways of expressing themselves despite and even through the limitations. So think about it like that, IMHO
[+] [-] crooked-v|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sharkjacobs|4 years ago|reply
I read this and thought that surely, in the year of our lord 2021, there must be a song or album title or even an artist name which is all emojis, how do they handle that?
But it seems like this is a pretty standard limitation across the industry[1].
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnforde/2021/05/19/emoji-na...
[+] [-] stewx|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Bud|4 years ago|reply
It has quotation marks around "Print this Document". For no reason. That's not what quotation marks are for. That's not how anything works.
The rest of the document looks useful, though.
[+] [-] gerjomarty|4 years ago|reply
I'll give you, it's a little odd that it even appears on the print version, but not the worst thing in the world.
[+] [-] danaris|4 years ago|reply
And that is something quotation marks are for.
[+] [-] reaperducer|4 years ago|reply
It has quotation marks around "Print this Document". For no reason. That's not what quotation marks are for. That's not how anything works.
Oh, dear. There's a glaring style error in line 2 of this comment.
It has the punctuation on the outside of the quotation marks for no reason. That's not how punctuation works. That's not how anything works.
Protip: It should be "Print this Document." Period inside the quotation marks.
People on the internet see other people putting it on the outside, and monkey-see-monkey-do spreads. But look at any professionally typeset document, and you'll see it in its correct position.
(I hope you take this in the mirthful spirit in which it was intended. Also, Apple shouldn't have capitalized "Document," unless it was intended to be a subtitle. But I'm not sure what the purpose of that line is.)
[+] [-] imwillofficial|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seabrookmx|4 years ago|reply
Sadly the metadata the consumer gets doesn't end up consistent because there's fragmentation between retailers (or if we're talking 10 years ago, p2p uploaders) on how to populate id3 tags etc.
[+] [-] paul7986|4 years ago|reply
More detailed example... my friend sends me a link to their playlist .. i click it .. it starts playing then when im done listening to a few songs its time for me to say hey siri play something outside of the playlist. When I do Apple Music pops up this message saying do you want to keep the playlist queued .. with two options "keep," or "clear," what im done with playing it .. i want to hear another song without having to mess with my phone/read or understand a message while driving. Just save this playlist for me and ill go back and play it later ... horrible and dangerous UX(annoying when not driving)! Spotify is totally different and does as expected!
A better UX is just play what I asked no stupid pop up and when I say Siri start XYZ playlist it re-starts it from beginning and or Hey Siri start XYZ playlist from last played song. That is a safer UX and isnt Apple Music usage 50% in the car?
Interestingly i see im being downvoted and upvoted .. would enjoy hearing others thoughts! Had a fun arguement with a friend about this!
[+] [-] mttjj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisseaton|4 years ago|reply
Is this some kind of in-joke?
[+] [-] oneplane|4 years ago|reply
The 'interactive' version is located here: https://help.apple.com/itc/musicstyleguide/
The link "Print this Document" simply takes you to the single-page rendered version.
[+] [-] jamamp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arnon|4 years ago|reply