Talk:Non-Album Track

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Summary of a long but productive IRC session after a particularly contentious edit (http://musicbrainz.org/show/edit/?editid=5467441):

NATs for releases preceding albums

  • Adding NATs that we know are going to be removed in future, such as those for net released songs that precede an album, does not sit well with some people. There's an element of worry that nobody will remember to remove the NAT when the album is released, and there's a further element of worrying that it's the start of a slippery slope of allowing data in general that we know isn't entirely correct (or in this case, won't be for all time).
  • The above conflicts with the idea that adding album tracklistings ahead of releases is a generally undesirable practice, since we can't guarantee that tracks added as NAT's will in fact, appear on an album, just because an artists website may suggest this.
  • This suggests we need to revisit this guideline, one way or the other, and clarify in general if "Data we know will need to be removed in the future" should be avoided at all costs or is generally ok, so long as we actually do remember to remove it.
  • Some of these tracks may in fact qualify as singles. In the edit that triggered this, the artist has gone to some trouble to "release" it. It has a website, art, and could arguably be a net-released single, if we chose to define it as such. This differentiates it from the usual "here's a bunch of mp3's" or myspace collections that are usually finding their way into NAT status. Certainly, we already define some of these release attributes such as "promo" and "compilation" subtly differently to the music industry at large. This could neatly sidestep most of the issues of adding data we're going to have to remove. Singles like this wouldn't need to be removed at all, they would simply be another entry. This also lead to the point that our release attributes may need some broadening, in this age of net releases and other confusing and ambiguous things.

NATs for broadcast material

We also went off on a small tangent here, and think this part of the guideline needs clarifying or restating

  • There's a big difference between "broadcast material that is known to be accurate and useful" and generic rips from radio or net streams, which are not widely available and are neither accurate nor useful.
  • Broadcasts like KEXP's song of the day (a podcast from a radio station which often includes live in studio performances of songs by popular bands), the SIXX MIXX mixes by the artist Party Ben, and the like, are ok as NATs. They originate from a single known, legitimate source.
  • Ordinary end-user rips from radio that are not part of an entire, widely distributed performance, should probably be more explicitly discouraged.


Bug report 3505 suggests that non-album tracks be called something else, like:

  • [individually released tracks]
  • [individual releases]
  • [one-off tracks]
  • [non-release tracks] (would be in line with the album->release terminology change and also more clearly states that tracks from any kind of release (so also singles etc. and not just albums) are not allowed.)
  • replace it with a general mechanism for non-album collections of tracks with no order