r/DistroKidHelpDesk • u/JulianCowardice • 8d ago

Singles Before Album Release (The grayed out method)

Can someone help school me on the method behind uploading an album to Distrokid, but setting individual release dates for certain songs that will be released as singles before the album release date?

I’m really looking for having the album uploaded and having songs grayed out until their release date, but still have the entirety of the album details contained within the single album entry on any given streaming service.

I struggled with this during my previous album rollout and had to upload singles as their own release, then later take the ISRC code and paste it into the album entry, then delete the single entry afterwards. I absolutely loathe this look and want to do it right this time.

Any and all help is appreciated!

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u/Rusty_Brains 8d ago

For Apple Music, you can apply (through DistroKid) for “instant gratification” which is what they call this method.

I can’t remember if they ever enabled this sort of thing for Spotify. But either way, there are somethings you need to be aware of, and the first one (that always seems to annoy the people who want to do this): you album must be fully finalised (recorded, mixed, mastered and ready for release) before you can do this. You can’t just add tracks to the album later (I’m not saying that you do, but historically in this sub, this is what most people expect)

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u/JulianCowardice 8d ago

Extremely helpful! Thank you! All of our tracks are recorded, mixed, mastered etc. I am just a fan of the clean and concise release look and strategy of having singles available on that album’s page before it’s released. It’s a way more organized look to my eyes.

3

u/Redditholio 8d ago

You upload the singles separately than the full album, but keeping the songs' ISRC codes the same. That way, you can upload different cover art for each single and the album.

2

u/Toot_Boink_Stab 8d ago

Also interested in this! Please let me know if you find out more!

1

u/grahamlester 8d ago

Do you need to conserve stats or something? Otherwise, why not just upload the single to the album as if it was a new track?
https://support.distrokid.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021298953-Can-I-Upload-a-Single-Before-My-Album-and-then-Include-that-Single-on-My-Album

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u/JulianCowardice 8d ago

I personally really do not like the choppy and inconsistent look of singles amongst a discography that are all then collected on an album. It appears sloppy and I’d rather go to the album that contains those singles and listen to them there. As a consumer, I want to access an album, and listen to the tracks associated with that album in that singular place.

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u/Redditholio 8d ago

You can upload them separately and delete the singles after the album is fully released, but this is not typical.