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Types of Artists

Description

An "artist" is usually either a person or a group of persons. While artists in MusicBrainz are (mainly) the people responsible for creating music, they are also used in many different AdvancedRelationships, and in that context they can fulfill all kinds of roles, from producers, publishers, lyricists, conductors and many more.

To distinguish the different kinds of artists, there are different types available.

• Person:

  • This indicates an individual person.

• Group:

  • This indicates a group of people that may or may not have a distinctive name.

• Unknown:

  • This is to be used when the type of the artist is yet to be found.

Additional informations and examples

Note that for the same person, there may be several different artist entries in the database, with different ArtistNames - this usually happens when a person uses different PerformanceNames:

• Kieran Hebden (of type person) performs as Four Tet (of type person)

The members of a group are indicated with the MemberOfBandRelationshipType, if the group represents a band:

• Ringo Starr (of type person) was a member of The Beatles (of type group)

... or CollaborationRelationshipType if the group represents a short-term collaboration:

• Kieran Hebden (of type person) collaborated on Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid (of type group)

In the case of a collaboration, the "members" can also be other groups. See for example:

• Band Aid (of type group)

• Queen & David Bowie (of type group)

The type of an artist can be modified by clicking the "Edit artist" link in the artist box.

Finally, note that SpecialPurposeArtists (Various Artists, UnknownArtist, NoArtist...), being neither groups or persons, are of type "unknown".

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CategoryTerminology CategoryArtist CategoryWikiDocsPage