Release Group

A release group, just as the name suggests, is used to group several different releases into a single logical entity. Every release belongs to one, and only one release group.

Both release groups and releases are "albums" in a general sense, but with an important difference: a release is something you can buy as media such as a CD or a vinyl record, while a release group embraces the overall concept of an album -- it doesn't matter how many CDs or editions/versions it had.

When an artist says "We've released our new album", they're talking about a release group. When their publisher says "This new album gets released next week in Japan and next month in Europe", they're referring to the different releases that belong in the above mentioned release group.

MusicBrainz automatically considers every release in the database to be part of a release group, even if this group only contains the one release. When a brand new release is added to the database, a new release group is automatically added as well.

Examples

• Transplant's single "Diamonds and Guns" is a single release inside its own group.
• Weezer's "Weezer" (Red Album) has ten editions in the database, some releases from different countries, some deluxe editions, and one transliteration.
• Franz Ferdinand's "Tonight: Franz Ferdinand" was issued on its own, with a bonus disc, and on two vinyl records.
• A 3 disc self-titled compilation by "Nirvana".
• Mozart's 9 volume, 170 disc "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Complete Works" box set, or Enya's 3 disc box set "A Box of Dreams".
• Blind Guardian's "Nightfall in Middle-Earth" was first released in 1998 and then remastered with a bonus track in 2007
• The musical "My Fair Lady" (Original London Cast) was originally released on vinyl in 1959 and on CD in 1998.

Style guidelines

Please see the guidelines for release groups.

Properties

Title

The title of a release group is usually very similar, if not the same, as the titles of the releases contained within it.

Artist

The artist of a release group is usually very similar, if not the same, as the artist of the releases contained within it. Multiple artists can be linked using artist credits.

Type

The type describes what kind of releases the release group represents, for example album, single, soundtrack, compilation etc.

See the Type subpage for a full list of release group types.

MBID

See the page about MBIDs for more information.

Disambiguation comment

See the page about comments for more information.

Annotation

See the page about annotations for more information.