Casing Rules. What Words Should I Capitalize?

Our distribution partners follow the Chicago Manual of Style, a trusted and frequently updated reference of how best to display words in print, for formatting rules. We do too.

The rules for what words you can and can't capitalize in your track titles vary by language. The only exception to these rules is for established ARTIST NAMES. Please click here for more information about custom casing for established artist names.

Many languages, including English, are required to use TITLE CASING as in, "This Is the Title of Your Track."

Some languages use SENTENCE CASING. This is the way words are generally capitalized in prose.

No language allows for a track title in all capital letters. PLEASE DO NOT WRITE YOUR TRACK TITLES IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

Here are the rules for what words you should capitalize in your track titles.

English
Spanish and Portuguese
Swedish, French, Italian, Scandinavian, and most Eastern European Languages
German
Other languages

English Uses Title Casing

Prepositions of four letters or fewer should be lower-cased (at, by, for, from, in, into, of, off, on, onto, out, over, to, up, and with) except when the word is part of a verb phrase or is used as another part of speech (such as an adverb, adjective, noun, or verb). Some common examples of verb phrases are "fill up", "deal with", and "long for".

These words must be lowercase: a, an, and, as, but, for, from, nor, of, or, so, the, to, yet.

Exceptions:

• The first and last word in a title must be capitalized.
• The first and last word inside parentheses must be capitalized.
• Words before and after -, /, or : must be capitalized.
• "The" must be capitalized when it is the start of an Artist Name.

The elements of hyphenated words must be capitalized except for a, an, and, for, from, of, or, the, to, and in. For example: "Down-and-Out-Blues".

Spanish and Portuguese Use Title Casing

For Spanish language albums and singles, the following words must be lowercase: a, al, de, del, e, el, en, la, las, los, o, para, por, un, una, y

For Portuguese language albums and singles, the following words must be lowercase: a, à, ao, aos, as, às, da, das, de, do, dos, e, em, na, nas, no, nos, o, os, ou, para, pela, pelas, pelo, pelos, por, um, uma

Swedish, French, Italian, Scandinavian, and most Eastern European languages use sentence casing.

This means capitalizing the first word of the sentence, and all proper nouns, only.

German uses modified Sentence Casing.

This means capitalizing the first word of the sentence, and all proper nouns. In addition, the first letter of every noun must be capitalized. Please note that you may not be able to do this yourself. This is a change that may be made by our inspection team if you are unable to submit your titles with modified sentence casing.

For German names and titles, all characters common in German orthography must be used (for example, Ä ä, Ö ö, Ü ü, ß). Please do not use digraphs.

For Example:  "Ihre größten Erfolge" is correct, not "Ihre groessten Erfolge".  "1000 Träume weit" is correct, not "1000 Traeume weit"

Other Languages, Please Use Title Casing

Our inspection team may modify the casing of your track titles based on the language of your album.