Style/Artist

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Artist

When adding a new Artist to the database you can provide various pieces of information, of which the name is the most important.

Name

The Artist Name is the official name of an artist, be it a person or a band. In most cases, it's the name as found on releases' sleeves.

This is a simple concept, but there are complications to this caused by artists releasing material under different names, whether as side projects, collaborations with other artists, or due to changes in musical direction. The meaning of an artist name also changes subtly depending on the ArtistType.

The same name can be used for more than one artist. If you add a new artist that has the same name as an existing one, you will be required to enter a comment (see below).

There are also the concepts of PerformanceName and LegalName, either of which might be the official ArtistName. These two can be linked using the PerformanceNameRelationshipType.

Note that you can change how an artist is credited on a release or track when you enter that release. There is no need to add a new artist to the database if the artist is already present in our database under a (slightly) different name. Please only add a new artist when:

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Sort name

The "artist sort name" is a variant of the artist name that will be used when the artist is listed with other artists.

The idea is to ensure that all the artists that start with "The" will not end up under "T". This also applies to artists who have regular names like Eric Clapton, but not to bands that have fictitious names like Cypress Hill. Sort names should contain all the accented characters that are present in the name of the artist.

Think of the sort name as being the name that would place the artist where you would expect to find it alphabetically (e.g. in a record shop).

The guidelines for SortNameStyle are complex, please take a look at them if you're editing or voting on a SortName.

Comment

The comment is a field in the database used to help users distinguish between identically named artists.

It will appear in the search results next to each name: so, ideally, the comment should be kept fairly short. A few words is normally enough, just enough that someone reading it will recognize the artist they're looking for. The comment field is not a place to store general background information about the artist: that kind of information should go in the ArtistAnnotation.

Country

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Other fields

The remaining fields are fairly straightforward. With Type you can choose if this artist entry is for a single person or a band. If the artist is a person you can choose their gender. The begin date and end date are used to indicate the birth and death of a single person, or when a band was formed and disbanded.

An artist can also have multiple aliases. An ArtistAlias is used as a search hint to catch alternative or incorrect spelling of an ArtistName. These are usually entered later, you will not be asked to enter any artist aliases when adding a new artist to the database.