Why would you want your lyrics to appear on as many services as possible?
- If the lyrics to a song are easily accessible, 88% of listeners will view them (e.g. by pressing an icon on a webpage or in an app)
- The addition of lyrics improves the listening experience. Listeners will be curious about what the artist is saying during live performances where artists are speaking / calling out to the audience (and are less audible).
- Law requires websites and services to pay royalties each time lyrics are displayed (songwriter royalties). With 88% of listeners viewing song lyrics, having your lyrics displayed on streaming services is a simple way to generate additional royalties! The process that is used to collect these royalties, also ensures that you receive royalties when your song is covered by another artist, when lyrics are used in books, sheet music, etc..
There are 3 major lyric databases! Which should I use?
The answer is simple... all of them, because this increase the chance that your lyrics can be viewed!
There are several services that display lyrics, but they often use different databases as sources for their lyrics. See the table below...
| Service | Genius | LyricFind | Musixmatch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Alexa Amazon Music |
- | Yes | Yes |
| Apple Music | Yes | ? | Yes |
| - | - | Yes | |
| Deezer | - | Yes | - |
| - | Yes | Yes | |
| - | - | Yes | |
| JioSaavn | - | - | Yes |
| Shazam | - | Yes | Yes |
| Spotify | - | - | Yes |
| Vevo | - | - | Yes |
| Websites | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| YouTube Video | - | Yes | - |
The steps for getting your lyrics displayed on as many services as possible (high-level view)
- The first step is posting lyrics on Musixmatch.com. Why? Once the lyrics meet the Musixmatch guidelines, it is relatively easy to adapt the text for Genius and LyricFind.
- The second step is the placement of lyrics on Genius. Lyrics that have been formatted for Musixmatch can easily be modified to the format used by Genius. There is some overlap between services powered by Musixmatch and Genius. Some services use Musixmatch as a primary source and Genius as a secondary source, and vice-versa. So it is important to have 100% correct lyrics on both platforms. That way you have more control of the quality of the displayed lyrics. (Just imagine that poorly transcribed lyrics supersede your version of the lyrics, because the other platform is designated as the primary source!)
- The third step is to send the lyrics to LyricFind. LyricFind has its own Lyric Formatting Guidelines. It is easiest to reuse the same lyric text that you formatted for MusixMatch or Genius, and then modify that text for submission to LyricFind. LyricFind is used by a number of services, including Deezer and Youtube Video.
Do-It-Yourself, and we are there to guide you if and when needed
We believe that every artist should be in full control of the lyrics that are shown on major music services. If you leave the control over to your fans or vendor content teams, someone else is deciding what is (in)correct... and their efforts will have an impact on the listening experience of your fans (and the amount of royalties that you can earn).Musixmatch and Genius get most of their lyrics from fans that transcribe lyrics, and (thankfully) these services also offer artists the possibility to verify their profiles so that they can publish 'official lyrics' that will overrule any fan-based lyrics.
LyricFind takes a slightly different approach. LyricFind accepts lyrics from Publishers, Official Partners, and their own Content Team.
- Anyone can submit 'fan-based lyrics' to the LyricFind content team for review and processing. For Independent Artists this means, that unless you / your team / a fan is actively sending your song lyrics to the LyricFind Content Team, you will not see your lyrics on any service that exclusively takes input from LyricFind! (Please don't underestimate the market share of LyricFind!)
- Realize that this Content Team can modify your 'fan-based submission' at their discretion. They listen to your song and will modify the transcript based on what they think you are singing/saying. Also, note that the Content Team has a limited number of resources... so it is nearly impossible to predict if and when your fan-based submitted lyrics will be processed! The only workaround is via a team that has access to the LyricFind system (more about this later on).
False sense of security
Some artists use the services of their distributor (if available) to publish the lyrics to Musixmatch, Genius, and/or LyricFind. But do you really know what you are getting?Some distributors just 'dump' the lyrics, and do not include verification of the lyrics and time-syncing of the lyrics to the soundtrack. Please don't assume what your distributor is offering you. Spend time to fully understand what your distributor is actually doing for you. If they are just 'dumping' the lyric text, then don't waste any time/money with this 'additional service' and move on to a way of working that gives you better results.
Rule: If a targeted service offers the possibility to its users to see time-synced lyrics, then you need to provide synced lyrics to the service. (E.g. Spotify, videos used in Facebook / Instagram stories, etc.)
If your distributor is just dumping your lyric text, and not time-syncing the lyrics to the song, then you should have someone time-sync the lyrics a.s.a.p..
Step 1 - Register
The First Step (for all scenarios): Get registered- Verify yourself as an artist with Musixmatch. Go to: https://about.musixmatch.com/artists/verified-artist
- Register for a verified account on Genius: https://genius.com/Genius-how-to-get-verified-on-genius-annotated
- TIP: Always use an email address and (strong) password when creating an account on Musixmatch. Otherwise, you will never be able to delegate any tasks in Musixmatch to others. Authentication using Google, Apple ID, Facebook is personal and can't be shared with others. Also, Musixmatch accounts that use Google / Facebook / Apple authentication cannot be changed to email login, and vice versa. An account using an email address to log in gives you maximum flexibility.
Step 2 - Lyric Formatting Guidelines
- Familiarize yourself with the Lyric Formatting Guidelines of Musixmatch, Genius, and LyricFind. I recommend that you first master the Musixmatch guidelines. It is relatively easy to tweak lyrics that comply with the Musixmatch guidelines for re-use on Genius and LyricFind.
Please take this step seriously! If the formatting of your lyrics complies with the guidelines, then you reduce the chance that anyone will modify your submitted content.
Also, the concept of 'First Time Right' is very important when submitting lyrics. A number of services (e.g. Instagram) have 'challenges' with updating song lyrics.
I have a number of examples where updated lyrics were never processed on services where the artists had quite a number of fans... and that caused quite some frustration and disappointment. This includes cases where the lyrics were 'dumped' as flat text by the distributor. Corrections to lyrics and/or the addition of time syncing would not show on some platforms. Attempts to get it fixed through FB/IG support were simply ignored. Moral of the story: "Get it right the first time!"
Step 3 - Opening tools in your browser
- Open our Genius Formatting tool: https://nzwaneveld.github.io/lyricformatter/geniusformatter.html (you will need this in step 6)
- Open the Artist Submission page on Musixmatch
Step 4 - Submit to Musixmatch
- Submit your lyrics to Musixmatch. Don't forget to time-synchronize the lyrics to the music!
Step 5 - Convert your lyric transcript in Musixmatch to Genius
- Before you click on 'Send' in the Musixmatch edit screen, select the lyric text and drag this to the middle of our Genius Lyrics Formatting tool (see step 3). This tool does a number of things. It converts all of the stanza / structure tags used on Musixmatch to labels used by Genius (it also removes labels that are not used by Genius). It also fixes a number of important punctuation issues that are covered in the guidelines.
- If you have already submitted the lyrics on Musixmatch, then go back into edit mode and select the lyrics.
- Note: The Genius Lyrics Formatting tool only starts to convert when you 'drag & drop' the lyrics into the tool.
Step 6 - Submit to Genius
- Go to your artist submission page on Genius, and create a new song. You can copy & paste the converted lyrics from the Genius Lyric Formatting tool into Genius.
Step 7 - Submitting lyrics to LyricFind
You have two options for LyricFind:- DIY - You send your lyrics as a fan-based submission to the LyricFind team via email. Processing time by LyricFind is usually 6 - 8 weeks and NO Time-Sync.
- Make use of a service that can submit time-synced lyrics to LyricFind - A number of distributors offer this as a premium service (or for an extra charge).
We also offer such a service. We have a service on Fiverr.com where we can do this for you. Click here for more details.
How to submit lyrics to LyricFind via email as a fan-based submission:
In the instructions below, I use square brackets '[...]' to indicate variables that you need to fill in. For example, replace [song title] with the actual title of your song.The two disadvantages of fan-based submissions via email are:
- Delays are caused by the huge queue that LyricFind Support needs to process, and the manual review & processing of email submissions. Processing of submissions via email can take between 6 - 8 weeks, and this applies to lyrics in languages spoken by the support staff...
- You cannot submit time-synced lyrics
Create and send an email:
Subject: Fan-based lyrics for [song title] - [artist name]
Message:
Please find below the lyrics for a song that I have released.
Title: [song title]
Artist: [artist name]
ISRC: [the ISRC for this song]
Lyrics:
[add the lyrics of this song]
Kind regards,
...
Don't know the ISRC code of the song?
- Open your song on Spotify and copy the song link
- Go to https://www.isrcfinder.com/
- Paste the Spotify Song link in the designated search box and click on 'Find ISRC'
The most important parts of the guidelines are:
- Remove all of the stanza labels.
- Only one empty line between stanzas.
- Exaggerations should be cut down to the original word or punctuation.
Outsource to us (paid):
Once you have your time-synced lyrics on Musixmatch, you can place an order with us on Fiverr.com to convert lyrics from Musixmatch to LyricFind. Our team will convert the lyrics you submitted to Musixmatch and submit them to LyricFind (direct access to the LyricFind Servers).Click here for more details
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