Style / Artist Credits

Status: This is an official style guideline.

Artist credits should generally follow the actual credit used on the release / track, including the join phrases.

Artist credits are not considered titles, so the join phrases should be capitalized as normally written in the language they're in.

Special cases

Featured artists

Featured artists should always be entered in the artist credit, not in the titles. You should generally enter the credit as it appears on the release, omitting any separators (like parentheses) that are intended to separate it from the track title. For example, if the tracklist has "Artist 1 - Song Name (featuring Artist 2)", enter "Song Name", by "Artist 1 featuring Artist 2".

Definite articles

If an artist name does not start with a definite article, but is credited with one, include the definite article in the artist credit. If the article can be seen as part of the join phrase ("and the", "with the", "y los") then include the article in the join phrase instead.

Multiple artists / Splits

The artist credit for tracks and recordings containing multiple songs by different artists, and for split releases and release groups, should be "Artist 1 / Artist 2" (space, slash, space).

Various Artist releases

Sometimes the cover of a various artists compilation will list some of the most well known artists that appear on it, often with a wording such as “X, Y, Z and many others”. This is a promotional exercise rather than a proper release credit, so such releases should still be credited to “Various Artists”.

No printed join phrase

If the release has no join phrase for multiple collaborating artists, but just lists them all separated by whitespace, use the default join phrases (an ampersand between the last two artists, and a comma between the others).

Specific types of releases

Some types of releases, like classical, theatre or audiobook releases, have their own, more specific guidelines for artist credits. Check our list of types of releases with their own guidelines. Those guidelines override this one.

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