Style/Principle/Error correction and artist intent

Artist intent describes whether an artist intended the ArtistName, ReleaseTitle or TrackTitle to contradict the language they're in (e.g. spelling errors) or state something that would contradict the StyleGuidelines.

Artist intent is a very fundamental concept, however, it is not clearly defined at all. The general idea (as stated in the StylePrinciples) is that, if an artist intended something to be written in a very special way, then MusicBrainz should follow this intent. Unfortunately it is very difficult to find out what an artist intended. ArtistIntentVsFacts discusses this problem in more detail.

If you want to claim that some deviation of the OfficialStyleGuidelines should be considered artist intent, the burden of proof lies upon you. You are encouraged to discuss the issue on the UsersMailingList.

Agreed Upon Artist Names

The MusicBrainz community has agreed that the following ArtistNames are considered to be styled this way according to the artist's intent:

• 2raumwohnung (all lowercase)
• k.d. lang (all lowercase)
• a-ha (all lowercase)
• lostprophets (all lowercase)
• locomotor ataxia (all lowercase, for artist name, release titles, and track titles) (Questions see edit 6892422)

Exception: Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar

As a general rule, we do correct spelling and punctuation and, to a lesser extent, grammar errors in titles.

This rule does not apply if it can be shown that the intent (see above) was for the spelling, punctuation or grammar to be incorrect.

Additional notes

"By intent" usually means one of the following:

• The artist themselves stated their intent.
• There is unambiguous consensus in the community that the artist wanted it this way.
• A certain misspelling is consistently found in all (official) releases of the artist.

Note: Unfortunately, proving artist intent can be somewhat difficult and so it is often up to the discretion of the editor. If you are in doubt, discuss the issue via EditNotes.

Reasoning

There are many cases of record companies making errors with track titles or even artist names (e.g. some of the Front Line Assembly releases), or creating new imaginary words for stylistic purposes. In such cases it often makes sense to fix the errors, valuing spelling and punctuation correctness over cover accuracy.

Examples

Some notable examples of titles that override the guidelines are:

Guns 'N' Roses

It's been established that the N should always be capitalised per artist preference, as well as having the two apostrophes (which isn't technically incorrect anyway).

k.d. lang

Her name should always be spelled with lower case.

聖なる鐘がひびく夜

聖なる鐘がひびく夜 by タンポポ. The titles of the three other versions of the song on the single are all solo versions by the group members named (Featuring <member last name>) on the release. They're not collaborations, just solo versions by the group members, so they're a nice example of when not to use the (feat. <artist>) format.

A Perfect Circle

eMOTIVe and aMOTION is ArtistIntent by A Perfect Circle for "incorrect capitalization".