About per-track credits and general album credits

[yindesu]

@TheFanCon

However, for the majority of releases out there that don’t divide their credits between each track, sometimes on the site I see said instrument/performer credits applied to the release itself, and other times I see them applied to every recording/track on the release regardless of who actually performed on what track.

You should not apply release-level credits to the recordings unless it is abundantly clear that they apply. For example, https://musicbrainz.org/release/cebfc416-d375-47b1-8af5-e720d0cead91 provides “scat” and “whistling” credits at the release level, but if you actually listen to the release, very few recordings contain either, and only the obvious scat and whistling track(s) currently have that relationship.

While scat vocals are very distinctive, simply hearing the instrument in the track isn’t necessarily enough if you cannot confirm that the instrument wasn’t programmed rather than performed, recorded, and mixed.

See also [request] Userscript to move recording-level relationships to the release-level in the Release Edit Relationships page