I have to admit credits are one of the things that got me into this mess in the first place. I'd get a new Record, throw it on for a listen, tear apart the packaging and pore over the liner notes, reading who did what and where. I built up a vault of useless knowledge comparable to die hard sports fans who have the same obsession with stats and sports history and lost a lot of CD inlays and record liners as I never put the things back together half the time. That led to writing the names of my favourite producers on the imaginary sleeve design of MY first album I'd make at some point in the distant future while in school daydreaming about making records, and now - here we are.
Today, streaming dominates and digital downloads don't really come with liner notes, or maybe they do occasionally in a PDF, or in the "extras" - and I know we ALL read those PDF or iTunes extras we downloaded back in the day, right? No. Anyway, they are predicted to be dead in two years so that's a short game. Unfortunately your success if you are the careerist type depends pretty heavily on these credits. People hire you as you made a record they like, or worked with someone they like, or had a hit and so on. At the point you try and get a manager you will need credits of people they have heard of, and ideally recent records of people that they have heard of as, well...last year is last year.
While vinyl is on the upsurge and all that sexy packaging real estate is on the comeback (for 40 euros a shot in Urban Outfitters in Berlin ) we can't put the genie back in the bottle. The single is now the YouTube video, and you should be credited on that in my opinion and everywhere else possible because there are very few places your potential future clients can see your name. It's not an ego thing, it's a matter of survival. Even getting tagged in social media is crucially important, maybe the most important thing today, but will your artist do it unless prompted? Probably not. I was heartbroken when I produced an album for a band who then didn't credit me on the sleeve, or any of the press after I'd spend a few months slaving away to make the best record I could. The management said "oh sorry, we overlooked it.." and that was that. I got a lot of work from the previous record I made with them because people saw my name. Thanks guys.
It happened again last year, this time producer credit going to people who didn’t even go to the studio, including one guy I have never even met! Nice. There are online databases of this stuff like discogs, and a couple of attempts at centralising the data like Jaxsta, or Muso.ai but good luck getting half your release even listed on AllMusic, and the funniest thing is if the credit is wrong or missing on the sleeve and you correct it - it will be deemed wrong as the printed sleeve is God. I had to literally upload the CD art proof copy of a project because some random ”music fan” on Discogs refused to accept that I did indeed mix the album and kept removing the credit from the site. I admit, I have happily also done uncredited projects for other people for money as a ghost mixer on many occasions which was fine - as that was the deal and I got paid well for it, and not received credit on at least four major label artists records that I know of as the producers were forgetful and busy worrying about more important things. So recording kids, if you wanna be IN this - repeat after me, and figure out how to phrase it as nicely as possible to your future and current clients: where's my credit?
