What a journey to release my first album via Distrokid.

I am proud to announce that besides a couple of glitches here and there, the whole world can now access my music on most of the major platforms, including Spotify, Deezer, YouTube Music, Apple Music/iTunes, Amazon Music, Tidal, and many others.

Distrokid did a great job pushing everything on all there 20+ supported platforms and I thought I was done. I naively forgot how the web has become complex, interconnected, and subject to 70+ layers of control — for our good sake (?).

So here I am fighting with each and every platform to claim my artist’s page, trying to let them know that I am the one who used Distrokid to push my tracks on their site. Some are faster than others.

Below is a small summary of my pain – for what it’s worth – ordered from the simplest to the most painful experience:

1. Spotify: Probably the fastest and most robust one. It was a matter of minutes for me to get access to my artist’s page and start promoting from there.
2. Tidal: Pretty straightforward. No major issue once you follow their claim process.
3. Amazon Music: After creating a new Amazon login, the claim was fairly simple. The experience is robust and pro.
4. Deezer: It was Okay getting access to my artist’s page. But out of the 20+ platforms I pushed my music to, they were the only ones who got my name wrong! They spelled it Slää instead of Slaâ. But I got it fixed through their good tech support in less than 24h.
5. YouTube Music: It looked, sounded and tasted simple. But it’s not. The request is still pending after 5 days. Hello, can I talk to a human?
6. Apple Music: One word for it – a nightmare. There is a process. You have to create the nightmarish apple login (yeah, I know, I’m biased. Not an Apple fan). And after that you get lost in translation. They were not even able to find my artist’s name. I’ll surely try again in a couple of days.
7. Instagram: Not sure if there is any human anywhere there. No process to claim your own music pushed to their platform other than sending a message to their tech team. 5 days later, I still don’t have a reply. Should I surrender?
8. Pandora: Not available in Europe, really? I can’t even access their website.
9. The ones I didn’t even try: These include TikTok, Tencent, Adaptr, Anghami, Boomplay, Claro Musica, Flo, iHeartRaodio, Joox, Kuack Media, MediaNet, NetEase, Qobuz, Saavn

Well, I knew it was going to be hard and long. I double-confirm. It is in fact long. And hard.

The positive is that it is working. People are starting to listen around the globe. Some (maybe you?) have started following me on Instagram – which may say that they kind of like the music. Those who didn’t like it might have simply dropped the ball.

Thanks to all the great support you all demonstrated already! Please link to my website, share my work, follow my stuff.

Cheers,

-Slaâ