A release used to need one video、および most releases did ではない get one. It 今 必要とするもの four、および they are ではない variations of each other. They 稼働中 on different surfaces、y are watched under different conditions、および three of the four are watched with the sound already coming from somewhere else.
Treating them as one deliverable in four export sizes is the most common および most expensive mistake in release marketing. Here is what each one is actually doing.
Spotify Canvas: texture, ではない a trailer
Canvas is the short vertical loop that replaces static cover art in the Spotify Now Playing view while a track is playing. The specification is narrow および worth memorizing: 9:16の縦型, 3 to 8 seconds, between 720 および 1080 pixels high, MP4 or JPG, under 8 MB.
The important property is ではない in the spec sheet. A Canvas plays silently, on a loop, to somebody who is already listening to the song. It is ではない competing for attention および it is ではない explaining anything. It is the visual identity of the track while the track is happening.
That changes the design brief completely:
- The loop seam matters more than the content. A visible cut every four seconds reads as broken. A loop that returns cleanly reads as intentional.
- Text almost never works. It is small, it is moving、および the viewer is ではない reading.
- Motion should be slow. Fast cutting fights the music instead of sitting under it.
Spotify has published engagement figures for Canvas across streams, shares および playlist adds、および the direction is consistent even if any single number is hard to attribute cleanly. The more useful framing is simpler: a track without a Canvas has a blank space where its identity should be, on the one screen where every listener is guaranteed to look.
Apple Music Album Motion: the record as an object
Album Motion is animated artwork on the Apple Musicのリリースページ. The key difference from Canvas is the level it attaches to. Canvas is per track. Album Motion is per release.
That makes it a different kind of asset. It is ではない soundtracking a listen, it is establishing that this is a record rather than a file. Apple Music leans harder on editorial presentation than most platforms do、および a release page with motion artwork sits differently next to a major-label release page than a static JPEG does.
For a single, this is optional. Fまたは album or EP that お客様 are pitching for editorial, it is part of looking like お客様 meant it.
Lyric videos: the search surface
This is the one that gets undervalued because it is treated as a nice-to-have rather than as 配信.
A very large share of people looking for a specific song do ではない go to a streaming service. They type the title into YouTube、または they type a half-remembered line of the chorus into a search box. The result they land on is very often a lyric video、および if it is ではない yours, it belongs to whoever uploaded one first.
Two practical points:
単語単位の同期 is the whole product. Lyrics that appear on the beat feel produced. Lyrics that appear a beat late feel like a slideshow、および the viewer notices in the first ten seconds.
Lyrics are licensed content. Song 歌詞 are copyrighted works. Putting them on screen is a reproduction、および pulling them from a free 歌詞 site is ではない a license to do that. This is the least understood risk in the format および the easiest one to get wrong at scale.
Artwork videos: claiming お客様の own result
An artwork video is the full track over an animated version of the cover. It is the least ambitious of the four および it is the one most catalogs are missing.
Its job is coverage. A track that exists on streaming but has no video presence has an empty result where it should have a canonical one. Artwork videos fill that space quickly, at length, for every track on a release, without a shoot および without a concept.
For a back catalog this is the highest-leverage asset of the four, because the alternative is ではない a better video. The alternative is nothing.
The four-in-one mistake
The failure pattern is always the same shape. An artist commissions or generates one video, exports it at 16:9、および uploads that file to YouTube, to Spotify, to Instagram および to Apple Music.
What happens next:
| Destination | What was needed | What arrived |
|---|---|---|
| Spotify Canvas | 9:16, 3 to 8 seconds, silent loop | 16:9, three minutes, sound-designed |
| Apple Music | Album-level motion artwork | A track video |
| YouTube | Full length, searchable, lyric-synced | Fine, if it is the right length |
| Reels および TikTok | 9:16, hook in the first two seconds | Letterboxed with bars top および bottom |
One of the four works. The other three are technically 稼働中 および practically invisible.
A sensible order of operations
If お客様 are running a release schedule rather than a single moment, this sequencing costs nothing および fixes most of it:
- Before release day: artwork video for every track, so nothing goes 稼働中 with an empty video surface.
- Before release day: Canvas for the focus track, because it is the asset every listener sees.
- リリース day: lyric video for the focus track, because that is when people start searching the title.
- For albums および EPs: Album Motion, before any editorial pitch goes out.
- Ongoing: Canvas for the rest of the tracklist as they get pushed.
なし of these are big productions. すべて four are 今 generated from the master audio および the cover art お客様 already delivered, which is the actual change worth reacting to.
Full detail on how the four formats are produced inside the 配信 dashboard: Promo 動画 with Rotor 動画 by LyricFind.