The music page lives at the handle plus /music, and every release gets its own address under it. Releases are managed under Music.
Import from Spotify
The Import tab on Music takes you through it in order, and shows where you are.
- Verify your phone number, once. It keeps TAP free of catalogues nobody owns. Verifying the artist is a different thing and is not needed here.
- Paste your Spotify artist page, the address that starts with
open.spotify.com/artist/. - Press Import from Spotify. Releases appear in a few minutes.
From then on the card is the status: how much of your catalogue came from Spotify, when TAP last checked and how many releases are still being looked up on the other platforms. TAP re-reads your catalogue every week, and Import asks for a read in between.
The address you paste becomes your Spotify channel, so it shows on your pages like any other channel and you only give it once. Change it on Profile, where every channel is managed.
Adding a release by hand needs no phone number: the phone gates the import, not the page.
TAP reads the title, the kind, the release date, the tracks and the artwork from Spotify. A release TAP already has keeps its title, its kind and its date exactly as they are; where you added it by hand and Spotify knows more, TAP fills in what was empty and nothing else.
The platforms TAP finds
Every release carries a barcode, the UPC. TAP looks the release up by that barcode on Apple Music, Deezer and TIDAL, and takes the identifier from MusicBrainz. A platform that answers nothing stays absent; TAP never puts up a search link and calls it an address.
A release goes out on Spotify before the others catch up, so TAP comes back for the rest: five minutes after the import, then half an hour, then hourly for a day and daily for a week.
The platforms you paste
Bandcamp, YouTube and SoundCloud cannot be looked up by barcode, so you paste those yourself. Open a release, fill the field for that platform and save.
A platform TAP already found is locked, with TAP's address in it. Press Edit beside it to use your own address on your pages instead. 'Use TAP's address again' empties yours and puts TAP's back. Your address only ever changes your own pages.
One release, every artist on it
Most singles are collaborations, and a release is one thing. So TAP keeps one release and every credited artist has their own copy of it: your address for it, whether you show it, the cover you upload and the links you paste. The title, the kind, the date and the barcode come from TAP and are the same for everyone on the release, so nobody can change them from their own page.
Where another artist on the release pasted a link you have not, the release offers it: 'Bass Modulators added a Bandcamp link. Use it too?' Use it too fills in their link; press Save and from then on it is yours.
The address of a release
Every release has its own address under your music page. Change it in the Address field on a release. Changing the address breaks links you already shared.
Put a release on your links page
Press the menu on a release and choose Add to links page. It becomes a link that shows the release and opens the release page: The links page. Once it is there the menu reads On the links page. Remove it from Links; the release stays.
Hide a release
Press the menu on a release and choose Hide from the music page. It leaves every page and the API, and its own address stops answering. It stays in your list; choose Show on the music page to put it back. Another artist on the same release keeps showing theirs.
Add a release
Press Add a release and TAP asks for one thing: the barcode, the UPC your distributor gave you. It is the field that finds the release, so it comes first.
What happens next depends on what TAP finds under it.
- TAP already has the release. You see it, cover and credits and all, and one press puts it on your pages. You type nothing.
- A platform has it. TAP reads the title, the kind, the date, the tracks, the credits and the artwork off Spotify, and one press adds all of it. You type nothing here either.
- Nobody has it yet. Normal for a release that is not out. TAP says so and opens the form with your barcode already in it, and looks again when the release lands.
Press 'I have not got one yet' for a release that will never have a barcode, like a Bandcamp-only release. The page still works and fans are still mailed; TAP simply has no barcode to find the release with, so no platform button appears and a fan who pre-saved gets no library write. Fill the barcode in later and TAP does the rest.
A barcode is twelve, thirteen or fourteen digits and closes on a check digit, so TAP catches a mistyped one before it reaches your page.
When TAP finds another release under your barcode
TAP looks a barcode up on Apple Music, Deezer and TIDAL. Where nothing agrees and the release it finds is called something else, TAP writes nothing at all and the release says what it found: 'TAP found this barcode on Osiris by Break of Dawn.' Two things settle it, and a platform that agrees settles it on its own.
- The barcode is wrong: change it and save. TAP looks again from scratch.
- The barcode is right and the platform simply spells the title differently: press 'This is the right barcode'.
Until one of those happens, that barcode does nothing. No platform button, nothing in the API, and no fan gets the wrong album in their library.
What the pages show
The music page groups covers by year, newest first, with a count for each year. Above twelve releases, filter by single, EP, album or compilation; only kinds you have appear. A filter works in place, and the address follows it, so you can share a filtered address. One release stands above the catalogue and stays out of a filtered view: Latest release, your newest visible one, until you pin another.
A cover names everyone credited when there is more than one credit, or shows the year otherwise. A release without artwork carries its title in your branding.
A release page opens with your logo, your portrait or nothing at the top, whichever you chose on the Settings tab under Music, leading back to your music page. The logo shows your name in type when you have not uploaded one. The release itself is one centred card: artwork, credits and date, the Spotify player above one row per listening platform (singles use a compact player), and two or more tracks folded at the foot of the card. Before release day, the card holds the pre-save actions instead: Apple Music and an address, each on offer until a fan has used it. Below the card sit the way back to your catalogue and your channels. When your music page is on, your website shows your six newest releases under Music.
When your Spotify credit comes after the first artist, your release page says you are credited on the release. Credit order does not name a musical role.
Most singles are collaborations, so a release names everybody Spotify credits on it. A credit links to the artist's website when TAP holds a reachable page for them; otherwise it is a name without a link.
The top of a release page
Under Music, on the Settings tab, choose what the page of one release opens with: your logo, your portrait or nothing. It is the same choice as on the links page, kept separately, because the two pages meet different readers.
Put one release at the top
In Music, open the row's menu and press 'Pin to the top'. That release then opens your music page under the heading Featured, whatever its date, and the same menu takes it back down with 'Unpin'. One release holds the top at a time, so pinning another moves it. Hiding the pinned release takes the pin with it, and the top of the page goes back to your newest release.
Switch the page off
In the bar above the section, on the button that names its state: Who can see each page. The page also stays out of your menu until you have one release to show.
A release that is not out yet
Add it with its date and it shows first on your music page, with the day it lands. In the editor it sits under Coming up, above the years, with a countdown to the day and how many fans pre-saved it where the platforms go once it is out. Its page asks fans to be told when it is out. Pre-save covers what they see and what happens on the day.
Who asked
Stats, under Artist, counts your followers and, per release, how many asked before the day and how many libraries it landed in. TAP holds their addresses and mails them; the page shows how many, never who.