Mats

I'm just wondering if I can get some help here, I'm dealing with some of the edits for Taylor Swift and adding some CDs in.

The problem I got is that there is more than one way of putting a title in.

It can be "Red (karaoke - instrumental with Background Vocals)" or "Red (karaoke - instrumental with Background Vocals)". How should that be delt with?

Also is there any reason why "(karaoke - instrumental with Background Vocals)" is put in the "Disambiguation" area and not the "Title" area?

Artist's page: http://musicbrainz.org/artist/20244d07- … 0878889970

Thankyou :)

IMO these arrangements differs so much that they makes new works.

I have a question about the use of Untitled as a track title. The band "The Peacocks" has two songs which are named "Untitled" and "Untitled 2".
The appear on those albums:

Untitled:
http://musicbrainz.org/release/a9ce34c9 … 2059bc7c36
http://musicbrainz.org/release/c508315e … 03b0c6102d
http://musicbrainz.org/release/27769ebf … 072b3511b3

Untitled 2:
http://musicbrainz.org/release/d32635fd … a2b02dcd82
http://musicbrainz.org/release/c508315e … 03b0c6102d

The are called that way on their website
http://thepeacocks.ch/releases.php
and on the album sleve / liner notes (bad photos)
http://imgur.com/a/z4mTR

On musicbrainz "Unititled" is stored as "[untitled]". "Untitled 2" is stored as "Untitled 2" and as "[untitled]" which really makes it a bit messy on that release and the same song is clustered over 2 recordings too. After reading the styleguide I'm still not completely sure if I should rename them to Untitled/Untitled 2 or [untitled]/[untitled 2]. I guess it shouldn't be the special purpose one (with brackets) as it appears to be the intend of the artist that these songs have that name. But i figured I should ask before cleaning up that mess. (And maybe this case gets mentioned in the styleguide)

http://musicbrainz.org/edit/22024169

In this case Warner Bros. Records isn't anything else as release label.
It's not manufacturer, distributors, copyright holder, phonographic copyright holder, license receiver or distributor, marketer, exporter, publisher etc.
All these functions is done by a other Warner Group sub-labels.

Let's not try and read too much into what is pretty clear branding.

On cases like this both labels should be included because the release carries both brands. If a logo clearly belongs to a distributor or a manufacturer that is a different matter entirely. It isn't the case with these two labels.

By the way Reprise Records on release are credited as copyright holder.

So I see a lot of Japanese release with the front cover uploaded with the Obi on top. I understand it is necessary to upload the Obi in some form, however it seems to me that the main cover should be uploaded without an Obi on top of it. It is obvious that it was not the artists intent to have an Obi plastered (represented) on top of their album art. Again, I think the Obi should of course be uploaded but rather separately (or a separate front cover with Obi on top). This also makes sense because once the japanese release is bought, the Obi is (most likely?) removed and so is only on there shortly after the purchase.

I personally don't like the Obi's on the cover art as I scroll through my collection and it would be nice to have it automatically download a clean copy.

Any thoughts/opinions on the best practices for this?

Normally would be to add every possible cat# and variation of it that appears on release so that there is no misunderstandings which one is more correct.

Anyway, I've partly entered a few different ones so far:

Smodcast: http://musicbrainz.org/release-group/dc … 88f6f92fc3
Introducing: http://musicbrainz.org/label/fedcc8b0-a … ea0e4c4a55
Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science: http://musicbrainz.org/release-group/5d … 81c6217a13
Dr Karl on triplej: http://musicbrainz.org/release-group/b1 … ff5e9389a2

And have made a few mistakes, based on the Broadcast programs wiki page (http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Style/Speci … t_programs).
However this seems to be mainly aimed at radio broadcast recordings, and is fairly impractical for most podcasts, or users needs.
I'm aware that I made the mistake of putting the digital release date into the track name instead of the 'original airing date' the recording was taken from, my bad. Also it should be 'Broadcast' instead of 'Spoken Word'?
I have issue with this though, because a lot of podcasts these days are never 'broadcast', just made available for download. I don't think putting a file on your website for download is a 'broadcast' by any definition, but perhaps I'm wrong.
Also: "Follow this format: YYYY-MM-DD: Program Name[ #1234][, "Program Title"][: Location]"
This seems impractical. For a podcast I feel 'Program Name [#X]' is sufficient, as you already have the date in the date field (and if it was broadcast on air earlier, most users wont want that information, as well as it often being hard/impossible to find).

Anyway, I'd appreciate some feedback, and hopefully we can decide on something now, allowing us to standardize those entries and use them as guidelines later?

They are quite varied, 'Introducing' is an interesting one, as each podcast has a different artist talking, so they should probably be the 'artist'? However it would be much easier, in an organisational (and tagging) sense, to group them under a single artist/ various artists/ radio new zealand.
Also, what to do about guests on podcasts? Add them as feat. artists regardless of if they're mentioned in the title/ description? It could also be a way to handle the above issue, and be able to keep a podcast in a release group (I know some people might want each episode in a different release group - based on broadcast guidelines afaik - but that would quickly become ridiculous, 100's of release groups on an artists page for one podcast..)

------------
How I would personally like to see podcast tagging:

Ideally, a new release group type 'Podcast'
Release group as podcast name
Release title: [podcast name [#]: episode name]

As in: http://musicbrainz.org/release-group/dc … 88f6f92fc3
This seems intuitive and useful enough to me.
A lot of podcasts don't use episode numbers, but I think it's useful to have that information. In a way including the broadcast date in the release name/ track name achieves something similar, but isn't as practical.

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Also it seems like a lot of work on MusicBrainz gets done through the use of clever scripts.
Unfortunately I'm not one of the clever people that make these, but it does seem like the RSS feed contains all the information needed to add these simply via a bot... thoughts?

Aaaand just found this: http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Podcast
Which is probably where I got the script idea from in the first place >.>
Has a lot of interesting ideas, but it seems like it's proposing a quite large MB update? What I'd like to do is just clarify how to add Podcasts into MB, here and now.

Sorry if that's a bit long and convoluted, I had heaps of different things to say/ ask..
Cheers

These two releases are the same release (http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Good_Time … P_SLYME%29) should they be merged together or should I create a new group and link them as part of that release? They were never released seperately.

This is a series that has had a MusicBrainz 'virtual' label created for these complications, http://musicbrainz.org/label/f1875ddd-9 … fa707b227d

Because this series is now being released in other countries I think we need to more clearly define the differences between the release groups, numerous release groups contained releases from the incorrect country. E.g. "Now That’s What I Call Music 45" released in the UK, is very different to the US release with an identical title. For clarity the difference is about 10years, this is not simply a rerelease of an old compilation.

I'm considering and proposing to do the following, and would like people's opinions before I make any changes.
Firstly I think clearly identifying the country series in the disambiguation field, e.g. "UK Series", or "US Series". I think this is a no brained, and just needs someone to make it happen on all releases, rather than the just the limited use it has already.

Secondly I wonder if it is worth having a MusicBrainz virtual label for each country, e.g. "NOW UK" and "NOW US". Doing so would solve the same problem that exists for the UK series and solved by the virtual label. The alternative would be to place all the NOW series' in the single virtual label that already exists.

So, what are your thoughts?

http://musicbrainz.org/work/b2be878e-12 … 84d07ea43c

So, the music was written by Schubert as part of a song cycle with words translated into German from a Scottish poem.  Singing the Latin text of Ave Maria to the same tune came later and yet recordings which are obviously recordings of the Latin version and recordings which could be of the original version are all linked to the same work.  That means these recordings will list a lyricist and translator that are not terribly relevant.

Should this be split into a pair of works so the Ave Maria settings is a later version of the Ellens Gesang III original and the recordings then be linked to the most appropriate work?

I know this example is a classical piece but I am sure the same situation comes up in pop music too - is there any reason to do things differently there?

Tracks 6, 10 and 11 all include featuring credits in the track title, which is precisely how the track is titled on the release case.
E.g. Track 6
Title: "Jungle Gym (feat. G. Love)"
Artist "Jack Johnson"

The tracks relate to the correct recordings, which are correctly titled as per style guidelines. E.g. Track 6 - http://musicbrainz.org/recording/db41e0 … a6f7dccd1d
Title: "Jungle Gym"
Artist: "Jack Johnson feat. G. Love"

The result of the second example is that the song recording is correctly titled and credited but the release title is not titled as per the MusicBrainz title guideline (imo)

Is it the intent of the MusicBrainz style guideline that the track list titles for a recording are precisely what is written on the release case? Or should these track list titles be updated removing the additional credits?