Relatively new author here. Im interested in the opinion of more experienced authors regarding track titling and whether or not they believe that having a generic title (say: Happy, uplifting corporate bassoon reggae") is more likely to get a hit over something less obviously descriptive (say: “Monkey Business”).
Is there any evidence to support the notion that clients will search for a new track via the title over its descriptors?
Many thanks.
First time poster…go easy.
Hey there Wondergarden,
From my personal experience, I’ve always came up with song titles like I would any other song I write. I see plenty of authors use both methods. I’ve tried both methods, and in my experience, it didn’t really change much of anything using “descriptive titles”. The real work lies in the tags.
For example, if someone is looking for trailer music (which is what I primarily write here), they will type in something like “Epic Trailer Music” or “Epic Action Music”. If you have your item tagged with “trailer music” or “epic” or “action” it will show up in the search findings regardless. (How well it does is another story as there are a ton of people here now).
I think there’s more benefit in going with “A Hero Shall Rise” rather than “Epic Heroic Trailer Music 03”. If I’m going to be a buyer, I would rather have a catchy song title that matches the idea of the song, rather than a generic title that likely someone has already used on many other tracks. Others may have differing opinions however.
Hey Palmtreep
Thanks for the response. I guess that is precisely what I wanted to hear. As composers I think we all recognise that the music we write and submit that feels “commercial” may differ wildly from what we actually prefer to compose. I did upload a track titled something like “Happy, corporate music” or whatever but felt a great need to take a shower afterwards. That’s not to to disparage others that do that material really, really well - some of those Ive heard are really excellent, but it just isn’t me.
Anyway, thanks for your insight.
I have searched for ‘Epic Trailer’, and on the first two or three pages of results, only items with both words in the title appear. And many people only look at the first results. I think it’s almost impossible for people to find you if your title doesn’t have those tags. That’s why there are hundreds of titles that are exactly the same. I wish it didn’t work this way, but that’s how it is. So, do your own searches and look at the results.
I get your point.
However:
I think it’s almost impossible for people to find you if your title doesn’t have those tags
and:
That’s why there are hundreds of titles that are exactly the same.
…leaves me utterly cold.
So every week there’s a new batch of and potential clients are met with that same bland, uninspiring result.
What a shame for a supposedly creative repository.
Until they put no (or minimal) emphasis on title and maximum on tags in the search engine, this will be the case.
Other sites (with more creative music) base search only on tags/description, making it possible to have creative titles.
It’s a very easy fix. They just don’t want to. No titles in normal search with a separate field for just title searching if you’re looking for a specific track solves the problem.
The search engines always decide what users have to do.
Yes. 10 years of bestsellers. The first people to really abuse the weighted titles in the search engines earned A LOT of money and still benefit today.
Before that, bestsellers had creative names, like Clouds, Pulse, etc.
The search used to be a bit different, rewarding EXACT matches. Now every match just containing the search term is found, which is why you see titles like “Corporate Uplifting Positive Happy Motivational Inspiring”.
What a great title. Really makes me a fan, wanting to put it in my Spotify playlist.
Say what you will about Epidemic Sound (I don’t like their business towards artists), but they do know one thing very, very well:
Marketing.
Creative titles and artists selling music that people want to listen to on Spotify. Not a search term template factory.
Yikes.
So I guess the smart thing to do would be to abandon any modicum of individuality in titling and retitle my entire catalogue with standardised generic titling?
How very depressing.
Thanks for the insight, all.
What a great title. Really makes me fan, wanting to put it in my Spotify playlist.
What a shame. I wonder if anyone with any clout at Envato/AJ would consider re-weighting the search algorithm in order to allow us to, you know, be individuals?
It’s too late.
There are too many tracks now that it doesn’t matter. Only in the first week (or day) can a new track with 0 sales be found by the title.
Your only hope now is outside traffic. You have to drive traffic yourself.
I would keep the creative titles, focus on getting the tracks popular on social media/listening platforms, and drive traffic that way.
You are 5 years too late for the search title game unfortunately.
We’ve tried for 10 years. But I welcome you trying.
You are 5 years too late for the search title game unfortunately.
That statement applies to a depressingly large aspect of my life.
Haha, yeah, but there are always opportunities. Just keep looking.
Try the search engine (on Best Match). It is obvious after a few searches what’s going on.
Make sure to check the sales numbers and the upload dates of the tracks you find.
The problem with music search terms is that there are so few that users use.
Inspirational, epic, trailer, acoustic guitar, etc.
Maybe 10-20 more.
The competition for those search terms is insane, which means only tracks with thousands of sales already, or brand new tracks will be found. With the odd exception.
At this point, a “RANDOM TRACK” button would be of equal use.
Why not implement that?
Excellent idea.
From now on all of my work will be titled:
“Random homogenous all-things-to-all-people generic rock blues jazz inspirational energetic polka”.
…that should do the trick.
Please don’t copy my ideas.
Here are the top sellers for April 2012:
Still creative titles.
April 2013:
Some search word titles have started to sneak their way in.
2014. Getting worse.
2016:
Game. Over.
2018.
Game. Definitely. Over. 
Ridiculous.
Surely even the people who run this joint can see a fatal flaw in employing such a myopic search facility.
…right?
One would hope so…
But the decision makers don’t want to change it. Probably partly due to fear of completely removing the livelihood of some top authors, which is understandable…
By the way, those top sellers don’t reflect EXACTLY how it looked as many tracks have had their titles changed since then. You have to use Wayback Machine to see how it was exactly.
There were mostly 1-2 word search titles back then, since the search engine rewarded EXACT matches without extra words.
Im sitting here utterly gobsmacked.
I clicked on an artist that had some excellent sales. He/she/they have a catalogue of maybe 30 or so tracks - ALL OF THEM ASTONISHINGLY SIMILAR AND GENERIC.
And sales that eclipse anything I’ll ever see. Were talking well in excess of 10K sales.
I mean, good luck to the the author - more power to him/her/they. But I simply don’t understand the market.
I wrote jingles and TV themes for 30 years and made what I now see as an exceptional living from it. None of my clients would have accepted such mediocrity. Im genuinely incredulous.
Surely there are still some writers out there writing scores that might be used in higher-end commercials and tourism board corporates?
Or maybe Im simply kidding myself. Either way, this thread has been a total eye opener. Were clearly not in Kansas anymore Toto.
Thank you so much for giving me a clearer picture.
Yes, there are definitely many very good tracks. But they are easily lost in the jungle for all the reasons discussed here.
Since the site used to be open to anyone (harder now, which is good), this is the result.
It just becomes like Instagram. The shelf life is 1 day.
No search engine in the world can display 700,000+ tracks… It is just not possible. The golden era is unfortunately over.
In 2012 almost every single new track I made would get at least 5 sales right away within the first 1 or 2 days. Not so anymore.