How I Got My Stupid Album on Spotify
When America's homeroom crush, Taylor Swift, isn't busy providing the soundtrack for a generation, she's a leading critic of technology's devaluing effect on creative content, particularly music. And she's not wrong. Content has indeed been cheapened over the past two decades. However, Ms. Swift—like so many critics of disruptive technologies—too often neglects the other side of these new paradigms.
Specifically, it's now easier than ever for anyone to share their content witheveryone. It might be more challenging these days to be a professional artist, but I'll be damned if it isn't the best time in history to be an undiscovered artist.
Right now, anyone with a connected device—no matter how wanting it may be—can share their words, images, and music with the rest of the connected world with the assistance of a record label, publisher, or TV network. We can all just get our work out there. This is unprecedented in the history of civilization, and it's exactly what has allowed a young upstart songsmith named Evan Awesomeface to launch his music career.
You see, ever since late last month I've dreamed of becoming an electronic dance music international super DJ. And now that dream is finally coming to fruition. My music is now available for anyone in the world to stream or—if they should so choose—purchase.
How did I do it? First thing on my to-do list was creating the tunes that would set the world's soul on fire. Unfortunately, I was starting my music career at a disadvantage in that 1) I have little experience with audio recording and 2) I'm barely a musician. Thankfully, technology has rendered both those concerns negligible.

We Are All Phil Spector Now

It's crazy to think how once upon a time, if someone wanted to share their music with the world, they needed to spend years mastering an instrument and honing their personal "sound." Once that process was completed, they would have to seek out similarly minded musicians with whom they could collaborate. After negotiating a delicate balance of musical egos through a prolonged process of "jamming," songs would begin to take form. Next, all those musicians would pool their money to rent some time in a studio with an engineer to record a demo. Andthen they would have to hope that demo would somehow find itself in the hands of an industry gate-keeper who would deem their music acceptable to share with the wider world.
I didn't really have the time or patience for all that. So, I just downloaded a free sequencing app on my iPad and laid down a couple of tunes during my commute. #Boom.
I used the Auxy: Beat Studio, a very basic sequencing interface that allows you to create and tweak four tracks simultaneously: drums, bass, and two synth tracks. The program is easy enough to navigate even if you've never touched a keyboard before.
AuxyAuxy's coolest function, however, may be that it allows you to record as you mix and tweak the various tracks. You can then share those recordings to other music apps for further noodling; upload wav files to the cloud (e.g.Dropbox or Google Drive); or even send as an email attachment (but as a m4a file for some reason).
Since my goal was mass distribution, I would need to convert my recordings to the more universal mp3 format (and it's actually a necessity to publish on Spotify). Fortunately, there are a variety of file converters out there. In my case, I used the free online tool CloudConvert, which supports conversions for over 200 different file formats and can even access your files directly from your online storage (in my case, Google Drive).
Now that I had two super awesome original songs, I was ready to share them with the greater universe! Of course, I could simply upload them to sites likeSoundCloud, Bandcamp, or even ol' dependable YouTube. But for some reason, Ireally wanted to see my songs up on the current leading industry platforms—Spotify and Apple Music.
This inclination to be part the "official" platforms may be a generational one. The younger folks seem to have no qualms about consuming, discovering, and even purchasing music via the aforementioned low-barrier platforms like Bandcamp. I, on the other hand, wouldn't feel truly "legit" unless my music was available right alongside Kanye and Zeppelin. Fortunately, while there is indeed a higher barrier to get your songs onto the Spotifys and Apple Musics of the world, it's far from insurmountable.

DIY Distribution or Die

Spotify and Apple both offer basic guides on how to get your music into their platforms. The most direct path, of course, is to sign with an established record label. However both services make room for any artist to upload their work via third-party aggregators. (Spotify has a non-comprehensive list of partner aggregators here, and Apple here). Aggregators not only upload your tunes to multiple platforms in one fell swoop, but they provide official legit-y things like UPC or ISRC codes (which you could also do yourself here and here, respectively). Of course, they're not doing this for free.
EvanAwesomefaceThere are a number of aggregator models out there. They all combine various degrees of upfront payments and/or royalties on the back-end—so, do some comparison shopping before deciding which one to use. After looking around, I decided to try Routenote, which offers a "Free Distribution" package in which the company takes 15 percent of any profits, as well as a "Premium" package in which you keep 100 percent of your royalties, but have a one-time cost per uploaded item (in addition to $9.99 annually going forward). You can read more about both of Routenote's services here. I wasn't interested in paying anything out of pocket initially, so I went with the Free Distribution package.
First thing to note about Routenote is that the site is hella slow. So have some patience when clicking through. After signing up, click the "Create New Release" link in the top corner. From there, follow a fairly self-explanatory step-by-step process to upload your music.
You will need to create some original cover art for your album and it will need to adhere to Routenote's guidelines (e.g. jpg file format, 1,425 by 1,425 pixels, no porn, no printed contact info, and must be of a "professional quality"). For my cover, I just went into Photoshop and blurred a picture of a deviled egg and then threw some red circles on top. #Art.
All Seafood CoverOverall, it took me around a half hour to complete the process. And that was how I—the artist now known as Evan Awesomeface—uploaded my first two-song EP, All Seafood is Bad Food featuring the soon-to-be classic dance tracks "Kendrick Lamar" and "Sex All Up In Your Thing."
Well, those were going to be the name of the songs that would change the dance music game—I received an email from someone at Routenote a few days afterwards saying that my track title "Kendrick Lamar" was not allowed because "our stores will see this as an attempt to metadata game and will reject the release." This accusation was, in fact, accurate. I was trying to score some cheap listens by tricking people (don't hate the player, hate the game, y'all). So, I changed the track name to "I Think That You Are Just Fantastic And I Like You." A few hours later I received an email that my album had been accepted by Routenote and would make its way to various platforms.
There is some lag time before your songs make their way to the various platforms—anywhere from one to four weeks. (During my uploading process, I neglected to read the fine print next to the "Sales Start Date" field—by default, it auto-fills four weeks from uploading so your tunes will be available on all stores at the same time. If you want your songs to be available ASAP, leave that field blank.) But as of now I am proud to say that All Seafood is Bad Food is available to the entire world to enjoy via all the major platforms including Spotify, iTunes (and I assume Apple Music when it launches), Amazon, Google Play, and even friggin' Shazam. Just to name a few.
This ability for an individual to create and distribute music with limited resources wasn't available until comparatively recently. Perhaps my tunes won't set the world ablaze and usher in a new chapter of electronic music. (But they also might!) Regardless, technology has made it possible to become a rock star on my way to work. And the begs the question: What are you doing during your commute?