I added a new release about the book+CD “Ritter Rost hat Geburtstag” (German). I added front/back cover art, scan of track list and impressum for verification of a reviewer. When looking through the database, I see some inconsistencies with other releases of the same book. As I am a newbie here, I would need some help to make the database right, please.
A) It seems we have two release groups for the same thing now.
A\ To merge two Release Groups is easy. Click on your link to the first Release Group and look at the right hand margin for the MERGE option. Then do the same on the SECOND one.
Merge into the better looking RG with more details. In this case merge towards the one with two Releases and the Series.
B\ The Recording page you are showing is already merged. This is two Tracks sharing the same Recording.
The two releases that have 22 recordings each are correctly sharing Recordings. (I checked)
You can’t link to the 11 track version the same as this has longer tracks and seems to be pairing up 1+2, 3+4, 5+6 or similar.
C\ It looks like some releases have been credited to the Character, others to the Creators. I don’t know enough about this series to comment. Generally if the creators are on the cover they should be credited in the way you have done these.
D\ The edits will go live after a week. If they get votes it will be quicker.
Thanks, Ivan Dobsky.
I will further edit the releases as you suggested and do the same for others I have in my children’s collection. Then I will come back for a short review.
The releases of the same release group (same tracks etc.) have different types/subtypes. It seems the people who created the series did not have the same view.
The release is a book. It tells a story in form of pure text and songs (scores plus text). Included in the book is an audio CD. It contains the text spoken by several people according to the role and the songs performed.
What types should I choose?
Primary type
Either album (“generally consists of previously unreleased material”, which is correct)
or other (because it’s a book with a CD)
Secondary type
I would consider it an audio drama, because “it usually has multiple performers rather than a main narrator” and contains spoken words plus music.
Other people set the type spoken words (but it contains music as well) and audiobook (but it contains music plus several speakers).
I feel hard to distinguish audio drama, spoken words and audiobook well. Especially I see that others thought different than I do.
What is the right approach? Should I go with Other + audio drama?
These should definitely be categorised as “Audio drama” (multiple actors are playing different roles as you said), it is more specific than “Spokenword” (and “Audiobook” is even wrong). I think there are two reasons why these are not consistently categorised:
Historically, there were only “Audiobook” and “Spokenword”, “Audio drama” is the newest of these types.
Many people which are editing these are beginner editors and are not very familiar with the distinction of these. They only add their release, tag their files and do not care or know how to fix the rest and make them consistent. (So that’s a thumbs up for you.)
As for the primary type, in general I consider “Album” to be applicable for musical content only, and not for spoken word content. That leaves us with “Broadcast” (for audio dramas which have been produced for the radio) and “Other” (for the remaining cases). So I would usually select “Other + Audio drama”.
But if I understand the descriptions of the Ritter Rost releases correctly, most of these are musical-like releases with alternating songs and audio drama sequences. In this case I would categorise them as “Album + Audio drama” because that’s what it is: A music album combined with an audio drama.
Do you know if there are any exceptions which are not musical-like on the page of the artist?
The EUROPA Mini audio drama series, those under the “Album” section and the only(?) audiobook should probably stay unchanged.
If you can confirm that or give me a list of exceptions, I can fix the type for all of them at once, I have a script to do that.
Edit: I think I’ve fixed them by now, please check if I missed anything or made a mistake.
That is an Audio Drama due to multiple people in roles. Audio Drama is fairly new so not surprising it is less used.
Audiobook would be one person reading a whole book out.
Spokenword tends to be speeches, comedies, etc.
I would pick “other” for these - again a convention to keep them separate from Musical Albums.
Edit: Whoops - didn’t notice the @kellnerd reply as failed to scroll enough.
Album vs Other - interesting. I don’t know the content here, but if it is like a Musical on a stage where speech and then singing I would probably still have done Other. But this is almost a “toss a coin” response as it fits both.
