Replace track recording on an album during distributor change

[Soundeity]

I am considering changing my music distributor. There a post already about this. 

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/Switching-distributors-for-our-music/td-p/1657499

However I wonder if while doing this I would be able to replace a single track recording on the album. That is, the album would have the same track names and UPC, all tracks but one would have the same ISRC, but one track would have a new ISRC due to a different wav signature. 

Also based on the link above I presume all people who saved the unchanged tracks via likes would not loose them from their lists after the distributor change, would they?

Thanks in advance

[Luan]

Hey, @Soundeity 
Welcome to Spotify Community and thanks for reaching out here!

Checking the Spotify for Artists FAQ, I've found that these changes will not totally affect the user experience since you wait until the metadata change on the Spotify system. To minimize disruption in user experience:

• Please wait until both releases are live in the client, and see if they have linked by comparing the play counts prior to removing the old content.
• Alternatively, if you wish to remove the old content at the same time the new content goes live, please make sure the new content has an end date which matches the live date of the new content, or a takedown to take effect the same day as the new content goes live.

For more information about these questions, please contact the Spotify for Artists support team.

If you have any other further questions or need more help, let me know! I'd love to help!

Best Regards,
hezorg

[Soundeity]

Thanks for the reply, hezorg

This did not answer my main question I am afraid. When re-releasing the same album with a new distributor I will need to specify the same UPC for the album and the same ISRC for each track as before. But what if I wanted to replace a single track from the whole album with a better version of the same song. I cannot use the same ISPC for this track as before since its audio signature will be different. So with the new distributor I will be re-releasing the same album with the same UPC where one track has a different ISPC than it has with y previous release. Will this create trouble? Since I will have old and the new releases at the same time for a little while, but the same track in them will have different ISPC.

Thank you.

[MattSuda · Accepted solution]

Hey @Soundeity 

When an album/single is re-released with the majority of the metadata the same they are usually linked. You may notice that some albums have a "other versions" button at the bottom right of the album page where you can see other versions of the album.

1. On an album page, scroll down to the bottom of the track listings.
2. Find more releases of the same album in the bottom-right.
   

Another part of the linking is song linking. If someone has saved an older release of the song, then when the new release is out, it should not be greyed out and it will still play when the old release has been removed. It will stay saved in their library and playlists and playable without them having to save the new one.

In your case the album should link since the metadata will closely match. The changed song might or might not link properly. If it has the same song title and similar song length and is on the same re-released album, then it will probably link.

After releasing the new album, go to your artist page and check to see if that "other versions" button is there in the desktop app. If you see that button and the album is not listed twice on your artist page and all the songs have the same play count on both versions when you hover over the play count area, then it has linked properly. This might take a day or so to properly link.

The way to see if the changed song has linked would be to go to both versions of the linked album in the desktop app and hover over the play count area on the same song. If both of them have the same play count then they have linked. If they do not, then they did not link and you might need to contact support to have this corrected before removing the old release.

Once you see that the albums and songs have linked up correctly you can remove the old release. 

If the new release does not link up to the old release and share a play count, you will need to contact artist support. Just make sure to include all the information and be clear as possible when contacting. They might not reply to your email but keep checking your page they usually fix within a few days. They should hopefully be able to link the releases so you have the same play count.

https://artists.spotify.com/contact