History:Featuring Artist Style: Difference between revisions
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(status note always annoyed me, users get the impression it holds incor. info (Imported from MoinMoin)) |
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=Style for Featuring Artists= |
=Style for Featuring Artists= |
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[[Image:Alert.png]] '''Attention!''' '' |
[[Image:Alert.png]] '''Attention!''' ''This guideline has been changed since the implementation of [[SG5 Disaster Relief|SG5DisasterRelief]] in 2006-01. See [[History Of Featuring Artist Style|HistoryOfFeaturingArtistStyle]] for details.'' |
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== |
==Official Guideline== |
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This guideline applies to cases in which one or more artists collaborate on a track or release. |
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'''When two artists collaborate on a track or release, file the track/release under the primary artist, and then append the name of the secondary artist to the name of the track/release as follows:''' |
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'''If one artist can be considered the ''primary artist'',''' |
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* '''file the track/release under the primary artist, and''' |
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* '''add [[Advanced Relationships|AdvancedRelationships]] of the [[Performance Relationship Class|PerformanceRelationshipClass]] to link to the secondary artists, and''' |
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* '''append the name of the secondary artists to the [[Track Title|TrackTitle]]<code><nowiki></nowiki></code>/<code><nowiki></nowiki></code>[[Album Title|AlbumTitle]] as follows:''' |
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<ul><li style="list-style-type:none">''"Put Your Lights On (feat. Everlast)"'' |
<ul><li style="list-style-type:none">''"Put Your Lights On (feat. Everlast)"'' |
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</ul> |
</ul> |
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'''If |
'''If no artist can be considered secondary,''' |
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* '''[[Create A New Artist|CreateANewArtist]] in the form:''' |
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<ul><li style="list-style-type:none">''"Artist 1 & Artist 2"'' |
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</ul>'''and file the track/release under that artist, and''' |
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* '''add [[Advanced Relationships|AdvancedRelationships]] of the [[Collaboration Relationship Type|CollaborationRelationshipType]] to the new artist.''' |
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This is an [[Official Style Guideline|OfficialStyleGuideline]] |
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<span id="houston"></span> |
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==What the Hell Is Going On?== |
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==Rationale== |
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The old FeaturingArtistStyle is very disputed. There were numerous attempts of [[Getting Rid Of Featuring Artist Style|GettingRidOfFeaturingArtistStyle]]. Several lengthy and heated discussions happened on the [[Style Mailing List|StyleMailingList]] (and only there. A huge section of the users never knew what happened). Finally a new guideline was proposed (see below). |
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There currenlty is no way to efficiently assign two artists to a track or release. In order to kep the database consistent and to keep albums and [[Various Artist|VariousArtist]] releases on the album listing of the main artist, additional [[Featuring Artist|FeaturingArtist]]<code><nowiki></nowiki></code>s are added to the [[Track Title|TrackTitle]]. |
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During these discussions we found out that the [[Style Council|StyleCouncil]] lacked procedures for deciding upon issues. The majority of the members of the [[Style Council|StyleCouncil]] supported the new guideline in an apache-like vote launced by [[User:RodBegbie|RodBegbie]]. This vote however has no legitimity. |
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We know that this is ugly, but there ''really'' is no good alternative. Read through the [[History Of Featuring Artist Style|HistoryOfFeaturingArtistStyle]] and the referenced discussions carefully before complaining. |
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Finally the new guideline was made quasi official by [[User:Zout|Zout]] on 15-11-2005 by changing this wiki page. He did so because it was supported by a majority of those people ''that took part in the discussion''. But there was no legitimate decision. |
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To allieveate the ugliness of this guideline a bit, [[SG5 Disaster Relief|SG5DisasterRelief]] has been implemented. Now artist tht collaborated ''equally'' to a track or release can be entered into the database as a [[Collaboration Artist|CollaborationArtist]] and assigned to single tracks without turning releases into [[Various Artist|VariousArtist]] releases. The second part of the guideline deals with this case. |
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The moment that it was being applied, other people have raised strong objections to the new guideline, mainly because it forced editors to change albums into [[Various Artist|VariousArtist]] albums. |
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==Details and Discussion== |
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To end this chaos [[User:TarragonAllen|TarragonAllen]] has been made [[Style Council Leader|StyleCouncilLeader]]. He has made clear that, since no legitimate decision was made, '''the old guideline must be considered official at the moment.''' |
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* The [[Album Artist|AlbumArtist]] is the main artist an album release is credited to. This means, the artist mentioned on the album cover (in most cases the front cover), package or any other labeled package like entity that describes the album (e.g. album page for online releases). |
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The unsanctioned proposed alternative can be found on [[Featuring Artist Style Alternative|FeaturingArtistStyleAlternative]] (since it is not official it does not belong on this page). |
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* A collaboration should only be created for primary artists who contributed ''equally'' to the track/album. |
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* Do not add any secondary artist to the track title. Secondary artists can be additional voice performers or instrumentalists. Those are often mentioned on the cover of the album the track appears on. Artists that didn't musically perform for this track don't fit in this category. |
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* For additional contributors who didn't perform on the track, use the various [[Advanced Relationship|AdvancedRelationship]]<code><nowiki></nowiki></code>s to define their roles in relation to the track. Those can be contributors to the technical production process (mixers, producers, record engineers, etc.), remixers and others. The different roles are explained in [[Compilation Relationship Class|CompilationRelationshipClass]], [[Composition Relationship Class|CompositionRelationshipClass]], [[Production Relationship Class|ProductionRelationshipClass]], [[Remix Relationship Class|RemixRelationshipClass]]. ''Note, that composers are often the '''main''' artists of classical releases (see [[Classical Style Guide|ClassicalStyleGuide]]) and remixers or compilers can also be main artists if they fit into 1.'' |
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---- |
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On the [[MusicBrainz Summit 7|MusicBrainzSummit7]] an [[SG5 Disaster Relief|SG5DisasterRelief]] has been conceived and is being developed. |
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One last question: is the '''&''' in the collaboration artist a must or an example? I see artists added with '''&''' like Queen & David Bowie and '''and''' like Queen and Elton John? This should be mentioned in the notes either way. |
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==History of the Guideline== |
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<ul><li style="list-style-type:none">An example. And we should also mention that an existing collaboration artist like 'A and B' should be picked, even if the sleeve says 'A & B'. This to not create multiple collaboration artists that essentially are the same. --[[User:Zout|Zout]] |
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</ul> |
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One more: If '''&''' is a must then what is the solution for more than 3 artists? Should also be mentioned in the guideline.--[[User:Fuchs|Fuchs]] |
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There was a lot of discussion going on on the [[Mailing List|MailingList]] regarding this guideline (10/2004). General consensus seems to be that we want to scrap this guideline, however there is no "good" way to to do this with the present system and so work on this will be postponed until [[Advanced Relationships|AdvancedRelationships]] comes in. In this process the [[Versus Style|VersusStyle]] will probably be changed as well. |
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<ul><li style="list-style-type:none">Maybe "A, B & C" as a suggestion? --[[User:Zout|Zout]] |
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</ul> |
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See the [http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-users/2004-October/018504.html discussion thread for more details]. |
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Now that [[Advanced Relationships|AdvancedRelationships]] is available, the removal of this guideline has been brought up again. The newest discussion on the mb-users list can be found [http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-users/2005-April/020491.html here]. |
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Nothing has really changed since then and in 10/2005 [[User:RodBegbie|RodBegbie]] has raised this issue again in [http://www.nabble.com/For-the-love-of-god%2C-let's-sort-out-this-(feat)-nonsense-t421143c2885.html this email thread]. This [[Open Style Issue|OpenStyleIssue]] is on the agenda for the [[MusicBrainz Summit 7|MusicBrainzSummit7]] and is discussed in [[Getting Rid Of Featuring Artist Style|GettingRidOfFeaturingArtistStyle]]. |
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As of 15/11/2005 this guideline has been changed. A majority of users and members of the [[Style Council|StyleCouncil]] have agreed upon the new guideline as written above, although the decision process was quite messy, to say the least. |
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===Attempted summary of that discussion=== |
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By [[User:MatthewExon|MatthewExon]]. (this does not yet reflect the discussion of 10/2005) |
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There was some kind of consensus that the very best way to handle many of these collaborations would be to attach more than one primary artist to a song or an album, similar to how discogs does it. There was an objection that many applications expect a single primary artist, but this could be solved by just concatenating artists together with "&" for those applications. There was also (somewhere, can't find it now) an objection that this would be inefficient for the back end. The major problem with this, however, is that it's a pretty big upheaval of the database, requiring a huge amount of website code to change, and so this isn't going to happen any time soon. |
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In the meantime, the guidelines are there to try and strike a compromise between readability and usefulness now, and the ease of conversion to the above system whenever it becomes available. |
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The current, pre-[[Advanced Relationships|AdvancedRelationships]] FeaturingArtistStyle does this by arbitrarily choosing one artist to be primary, and putting the others in brackets with "feat.". This guideline is widely reviled because it's counter-intuitive and impedes searching for works by an artist. A script to convert to a full multi-artist system would have to parse out all the "feat." bits and figure out which artists were meant, intelligently bypassing commas and ampersands only where appropriate. |
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The alternative proposal is to add new artists representing the collaboration, called "X and Y" or something, and link both artists to the collaboration using "collaborated on" relationships (see [[Musical Association Relationship Class|MusicalAssociationRelationshipClass]]). |
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Problems with this: |
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* Will add thousands of pseudo-artists to the database, which strikes lots of people as counter-intuitive. |
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* Makes it harder to navigate from an artist to all of the works they actually performed on. |
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* Much slower to add these collaborations using the website, since you have to go through the palaver of adding new artists and setting up a bunch of relationships. |
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* Results in a mess like what's happened to Tom Morello (see [http://musicbrainz.org/showartist.html?artistid=202165 here] and [http://musicbrainz.org/showartist.html?artistid=178640 here]). |
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Advantages: |
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* Probably a cleaner way of setting ourselves up for the "nice" system above |
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* Means recording collaborations with actual artist IDs rather than merely putting their names in a freetext field |
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* Helps when trying to identify which tracks on different albums are actually just the same track |
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* Probably going to be more straightforward for a script to convert to the ideal situation above. |
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There's still lots of disagreement over which style is the best. In the database right now, we have a mixture of styles, depending largely on what made sense to the editor at the time. In the absence of a real consensus this seems likely to continue. Each style is particularly appropriate or inappropriate in certain situations, so even if we came up with an "official ruling", it'd probably be ignored by those users who don't read the mailing list ('desire lines', like David Scotson says). |
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[[Category:To Be Reviewed]] [[Category:Style]] [[Category:Official Style]] |
[[Category:To Be Reviewed]] [[Category:Style]] [[Category:Official Style]] |
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Revision as of 14:41, 10 January 2006
Style for Featuring Artists
Attention! This guideline has been changed since the implementation of SG5DisasterRelief in 2006-01. See HistoryOfFeaturingArtistStyle for details.
Official Guideline
This guideline applies to cases in which one or more artists collaborate on a track or release.
If one artist can be considered the primary artist,
- file the track/release under the primary artist, and
- add AdvancedRelationships of the PerformanceRelationshipClass to link to the secondary artists, and
- append the name of the secondary artists to the TrackTitle
/AlbumTitle as follows:
- "Put Your Lights On (feat. Everlast)"
If no artist can be considered secondary,
- CreateANewArtist in the form:
- "Artist 1 & Artist 2"
and file the track/release under that artist, and
- add AdvancedRelationships of the CollaborationRelationshipType to the new artist.
This is an OfficialStyleGuideline
Rationale
There currenlty is no way to efficiently assign two artists to a track or release. In order to kep the database consistent and to keep albums and VariousArtist releases on the album listing of the main artist, additional FeaturingArtists are added to the TrackTitle.
We know that this is ugly, but there really is no good alternative. Read through the HistoryOfFeaturingArtistStyle and the referenced discussions carefully before complaining.
To allieveate the ugliness of this guideline a bit, SG5DisasterRelief has been implemented. Now artist tht collaborated equally to a track or release can be entered into the database as a CollaborationArtist and assigned to single tracks without turning releases into VariousArtist releases. The second part of the guideline deals with this case.
Details and Discussion
- The AlbumArtist is the main artist an album release is credited to. This means, the artist mentioned on the album cover (in most cases the front cover), package or any other labeled package like entity that describes the album (e.g. album page for online releases).
- A collaboration should only be created for primary artists who contributed equally to the track/album.
- Do not add any secondary artist to the track title. Secondary artists can be additional voice performers or instrumentalists. Those are often mentioned on the cover of the album the track appears on. Artists that didn't musically perform for this track don't fit in this category.
- For additional contributors who didn't perform on the track, use the various AdvancedRelationship
s to define their roles in relation to the track. Those can be contributors to the technical production process (mixers, producers, record engineers, etc.), remixers and others. The different roles are explained in CompilationRelationshipClass, CompositionRelationshipClass, ProductionRelationshipClass, RemixRelationshipClass. Note, that composers are often the main artists of classical releases (see ClassicalStyleGuide) and remixers or compilers can also be main artists if they fit into 1.
One last question: is the & in the collaboration artist a must or an example? I see artists added with & like Queen & David Bowie and and like Queen and Elton John? This should be mentioned in the notes either way.
- An example. And we should also mention that an existing collaboration artist like 'A and B' should be picked, even if the sleeve says 'A & B'. This to not create multiple collaboration artists that essentially are the same. --Zout
One more: If & is a must then what is the solution for more than 3 artists? Should also be mentioned in the guideline.--Fuchs
- Maybe "A, B & C" as a suggestion? --Zout
