📑 Sections (7)

2. Apple Music and Shazam

Apple Music for Artists, Shazam, lyrics, Dolby Atmos, AI tags and what to keep in mind when delivering.

As on Spotify, music arrives through a distributor, and you manage your profile on Apple Music for Artists. It’s free.

What you can do

On Apple Music for Artists

  • Profile: photo, logo and featured releases.
  • Stats: plays, listeners and Shazams.
  • Shazam: counts each time someone recognizes your song. It tells you whether it’s playing on radio or in venues.
  • Lyrics: whoever is listed as primary artist can view, edit or submit lyrics for their songs.
  • Motion artwork: can be submitted from the support area.

Loudness

Apple also normalizes, with a reference usually cited near −16 LUFS. A −10 LUFS master will drop further than on Spotify. So on Apple Music it’s more noticeable if you lost punch by squeezing the limiter.

Dolby Atmos, in case it comes up

Apple promotes spatial audio, but you don’t need it to start. If you do it someday, these are its rules:

  • It has to be made from multitracks or stems, not from the stereo master.
  • Conversions from stereo and stems extracted from a stereo aren’t accepted.
  • It carries its own secondary ISRC.
  • It’s delivered through a distributor approved for Atmos.

According to a distributor’s blog, Apple would pay up to 10% more for songs with an Atmos version. Not confirmed by an Apple source.

🔵 Can wait· in distribution

Atmos requires another mix and another workflow. A good stereo already reaches all listeners. Claiming your profile, on the other hand, costs nothing and is worth doing with the first song.

AI tags

Apple launched its Transparency Tags in March 2026, covering music and art. In August it told distributors they’ll become mandatory when AI created a material portion of the content, and that they’ll be shown as “Made With AI” labels. We cover it in AI: declaring and protecting.

Common mistakes

Quick path: Apple Music

Quick path

  1. Claim your profile with the first song uploaded.
  2. Upload your photo and feature the latest release.
  3. Add the lyrics.
  4. Watch the Shazams to see where people discover you.
  5. Leave Atmos for later.
  6. Tell the distributor if you used AI in a material portion.

Expected result

Expected result

A profile in your name and up to date, with lyrics and stats, without spending time on what you don’t need yet. Next is the biggest platform for listening to music for free: YouTube.