User:Reosarevok/Untitled Track Style update
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Status: This page describes an active style guideline proposal and is not official. |
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There are two main concepts of tracks with no name: untitled tracks, which are known to have no title, and unknown tracks for which the title (or lack of it) is not known.
Untitled tracks
- For untitled tracks, enter [untitled] as the name. These tracks are clearly not given a name on the release (album sleeve and liner notes) they appear on.
- The recording and work used for the track will normally be also [untitled], but if the track is given an official name in another release, the recording and work can be updated.
- If the track is widely known under an unofficial name, you can use that name between square brackets (conforming to the Capitalization Standard) as track name instead.
- For tracks that do not contain songs and that are not named by the artist, you can enter a descriptive name between brackets in all lowercase, or [untitled]. If the track contains only silence, use [silence].
Unknown tracks
- For music tracks for which the name (or the lack of it) is unknown, enter [unknown] as the name.
- A hidden track, or a bonus track that appears as just "Bonus Track", is not [untitled]; it is [unknown]. None of the two are clearly shown as lacking a title on the release -nor, in the case of hidden tracks, shown on the release at all.
- If the artist gives the track a name somewhere else (for example, in his website) that name should be used instead of [unknown]. If the title of a track added as [unknown] is given at a later point, the [unknown] title should be updated. If the track is confirmed to have no title, it should be changed to [untitled].
Note that data tracks should follow data track style.
Examples and specific indications
- [untitled]
- A clear example of the use of [Unofficial Name] is Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II, that has no titles on the cover, but images.
- In some genres, like techno music, it is relatively common for releases to have a title, but no title for the individual tracks, as Christian Wünsch's Proved Negligence. These tracks should be considered untitled tracks, and can be entered as [untitled] or, following the unofficial name guideline, as [Release Name, Part X] (always in square brackets).
- As indicated above, the descriptive name option can be used, in lowercase, for live bootleg releases where there are tracks containing crowd noise, a guitar solo, etc. Corresponding names would be [crowd noise] and [guitar solo], e.g. track 3.
- Some releases separate bonus tracks from the listed tracks by one or more tracks that contain only silence. A version of Nine Inch Nails' Broken uses the full 99 tracks available to the CD format; tracks 1 to 6 are music, tracks 7 to 97 are silence tracks, and tracks 98 and 99 are 'hidden' tracks. As indicated, these should be named [silence].
- [unknown]
- As mentioned above, [unknown] applies to "hidden" songs, e.g. track 11 on Cords' No Guru No Method No Beeper. When they appear on a track that also has a listed song, this rule has to be used in combination with Multiple Title Style, e.g. track 13 on Bush's Razorblade Suitcase.
- The titles on a white label vinyl release are always [unknown], not [untitled]. As indicated, if any of the tracks is released in an official way and gets a name, it should also be named in the white label release.
- If a live bootleg includes a new, previously unreleased track that is not introduced with its name, it should be entered as [unknown] (and be changed to the official name when / if it is given one).