Age of Empires VGST Clean Up

MusicBrainz
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Hello

I’m going to ping @aerozol at the start of this as I know they’re into VGST entries in MB.

I’m slowly working on getting my favourite video game soundtracks correctly structured in MB, which is a bit of a task as its a bit of a mess.

Let’s begin with the reference links:
Overall soundtrack work for Age of Empires - https://musicbrainz.org/work/4ca163a4-1c3e-49cb-aa5e-be3e276df5f6
Overall soundtrack work for Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome - https://musicbrainz.org/work/8319ab8c-3fd2-4a3a-b6dc-8789edfd313d

I have put together some works, and with the exception of Bigelow’s Bungalow which I credited to the wrong game (it was only ever introduced with RoR) I think I’ve got everything set up using the correct names for the works.

I know me and Aerozol have spoken before about work titles for games when its not always clear, but I have tried to make sure this uses the correct “official” work names.

For clarity, to work this out I did one of two things:

  1. Many of the works have been reworked for Age of Empires Defintive Edition which has had a proper digital release (https://musicbrainz.org/release/0f67d109-7f6a-4cc9-94d7-58c108394788), of which they helpfully put the original work name in parentheses - as this is an official release from Microsoft/Ensemble I would say these are the confirmed correct work names for these compositions
  2. For the works that didn’t make it to being reworked, I have instead tried to locate the various other “compilation” CD audio releases such as https://musicbrainz.org/release/922e738d-193e-4f59-9e58-847592f2e853

Now I dont think my work is done here, I think there are more corrections to be made and then there are the MIDI tracks that don’t appear to exist in the database yet either.

Just wanted to get your thoughts/input/feedback etc.

KR

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Looks great! I have to say I’m not an expert on works etc, I tend to stick with tidying up releases/the top level. @CyberSkull might have some advice for you?

edit: and I can’t remember what we talked about in the past :stuck_out_tongue:
I think Cyberskull talked to me about what I was doing in the AoE releases as well, but I can’t remember what that was about either!

All you can really do imo is try to dig up the most ‘official’ (and sometimes that’s not even clear) name and use that. Which you’re doing. My only suggestion is that if some alternate names are really different you could add an alias to the work to help with searching.

Great work, hope it’s fun! I love matching tracks that have a completely different name, so satisfying :star_struck:

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𝓘 𝓗𝓐𝓥𝓔 𝓑𝓔𝓔𝓝 𝓢𝓤𝓜𝓜𝓞𝓝𝓔𝓓

I have no recollection either.

Not being familiar with the AoE music I can only give you some general pointers. So far it looks like you did a good job with the Age of Empires: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires relationships.

The only suggestion I have at this moment is that works like “A New Day” should be classified as songs, as soundtracks are collections of music attached to some kind of a production (a simple way to think about it is soundtracks collect songs).

Generally a good rule of thumb is to group expansion packs, DLC & episodes into the main work, like in Final Fantasy XI Online or StarCraft II. There are arguments to be made both for and against putting expansions that are separate campaigns (essentially a separate game) in their own soundtrack work, though that is really a case by case basis (and makes for a bit more work doing it all separate in my opinion). I generally favor just putting in in the main game work and using the disambiguations to tell us which expansion/DLC it is from.

Games like Pokémon on the other hand with multiple versions of what is the same base game instead get the games themselves condensed into the same work, for example we have Pokémon Red, Green & Blue, collecting the identical Red, Green and Blue versions of the original Pokémon. But even that has an exception! Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition has two new songs in it that Red/Green/Blue doesn’t and is considered a different game because of the inclusion of the pikachu from the anime and the accompanying new scenes and music.

I hope my ramblings has given you some examples you can work from and inform your work going forward.

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OK cool - thank you for your input.

My only query is on this:

The only suggestion I have at this moment is that works like “A New Day” should be classified as songs, as soundtracks are collections of music attached to some kind of a production (a simple way to think about it is soundtracks collect songs).

I got told off for setting works as Songs with No Lyrics, as apparently a song requires lyrics to be a song (theres another thread somewhere where I don’t think we ever got to the bottom of this).

EDIT - the thread about the above, Work Type for "Instrumental" Music

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To me songs seems appropriate as it is basically the catch-all term for most types of compositions. Now if you know what other type it is, go for it! Composers and pretty much everyone else involved with a soundtrack I’ve seen in interviews call them songs, so I think that’s fine.

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For me song means singer.
But I know there are still ambiguities about Song word.
For instrumentals, I usually prefer leaving Type empty and setting [No lyrics] as Language.