SoundCloud unfurls square in a widescreen world
The share image is soundcloud-unfurl-square. Platforms crop it into a 1.91:1 frame.
So the frame fights the artwork
Square art, widescreen slot, and every platform resolves the fight differently.
What's actually wrong
soundcloud.com ships a share asset literally named soundcloud-unfurl-square. Square is the album-art instinct, but the share slot on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Slack is 1.91:1 widescreen. A square image in that frame gets centre-cropped or letterboxed, platform by platform, so the brand shows up differently everywhere and correctly nowhere. Music gets shared in group chats and feeds; the card is where a track makes its first impression.
This is cause 4 of the 5 ways link previews break. The full breakdown covers the manual fix and the automatic one.
og:image → soundcloud-unfurl-square-2026.jpgshare slot ratio → 1.91:1 (1200x630)square + widescreen slot = crop or letterboxbonus: the asset 403s when fetched without a SoundCloud refererWhat that costs downstream
Every share converts a little worse
The card is the first impression before a single note plays. A cropped one loses a few taps on every share, across millions of shares.
Artists' drops look off
Release-day links are pasted everywhere at once. Inconsistent crops make the same drop look different in every channel it lands.
The waveform goes unused
SoundCloud owns the most recognisable visual in audio: the waveform. It's built for wide frames, and it's not in the card.
The waveform, widescreen
Track, artist, and the shape of the sound, composed for the slot.
Tracks and playlists carry the culture
Each share is a listening decision made from a card.
A playlist on Twitter
The mix people send their group chat on Friday.
An artist page on Facebook
The profile link in every bio.
For whoever owns the templates
Square is for players, not cards
Album art is square because vinyl was. The unfurl slot isn't. Different surfaces need different compositions.
unfurl-square.jpg → 1.91:1 slotPer-platform is the point
X, Facebook, and iMessage each want different dimensions. One asset can't satisfy them; per-consumer rendering can.
The waveform travels
OpenGraph+ renders wide cards per track page, which is exactly where a waveform belongs.