Getting your music onto Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and other streaming services is an important step for any independent artist who wants to reach a wider audience and earn royalties from their recordings. However, you generally do not upload a commercial music release directly to each streaming service yourself. Independent artists typically work with a digital music distributor or aggregator that delivers their audio, artwork, metadata, and release information to multiple streaming services. Spotify and Apple Music both direct independent artists toward music distributors, while YouTube Music explains that aggregators handle the delivery of music and metadata to its