Behind the Songs

The "Remembering Dolores" Tribute Album

A year ago I started mapping out my "Remembering Dolores" (O'Riordan) Album. I always planned my tribute album to drop on her birthday, 6th September. I already had some songs pre-written like my Britain's Got Talent audition song "Dreams." I didn't care about winning, I just wanted to keep Dolores's memory alive.

Anyways because of studies I never got the opportunity to perform my Dreams version in any singing competition, so it's now number 2 on the "Remembering Dolores" album. This dreams version is the only cover on the album and although recorded in 2022 it's never been released.

Because it's a tribute I wrote "Happy Birthday" which is the opening track on the album. I wanted it to be relevant to anyone who has suffered loss, so I purposely kept Dolores's name out of the lyrics.

There's 2 versions of "Happy Birthday" on the album a studio version and a live version. In the live version we pay our respects to Dolores and Sinead O'Connor.

The intro opens with

Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, I do miss Sinead, but nothing compares to you.

That's a brief intro into my tribute album, I have purposely not published or released the lyrics. This was an amazing boost to songs a few years ago, but not anymore. There's too many platforms scraping lyrics to feed their own search engine ranking more than anything else.

The Royalties Blueprint: Audio Metadata

I have my songs written and recorded, what next? The most crucial part of any song, isn't actually the song, It's the Audio Metadata. If this one area gets neglected, it doesn't mean your song will flop, but 95% of streaming services will not payout the royalties.

If an artist notices there's something wrong with their payouts, check your audio metadata. Not the one stored in your files, but the one that was uploaded. If you're with Distrokid just download the original, from "My Music" not the vault.

Now you need an audio media reader, there's lots of free apps if you don't have one. If you find there's nothing on the metadata file, just fill it in. At this stage your artist name is the most important. Then reupload or swap the audio through your distributor.

Once the streaming platforms receive the new updated audio file, they will pay out all royalties owed. If you're with Distrokid you will need the ultimate plan to be able to swap out songs. It's probably the best option for any artist because if one of your releases sounds off, you can quickly swap it out.

If you use mastering services on upload like MIXEA you will lose all your audio metadata.

Genre Strategy & Writing Inspiration

Nothing actually guarantees a songs success but giving your tracks the best chance is a must, because the competition is vastly increasing.

If you're struggling to choose your genre don't go for any sub-genre stick to the parent genre.

Are you struggling to write your own lyrics? Poems are a great inspiration, search and read a few poems, you will then realize how many poets, poems actually feature in top artists songs.