Hi folks,
I have a pair of LPs, which were released by British Argo in 1966.
These are ‘A Merry Progress to London’ and ‘Sweet Thames Flow Softly’, by the Critics Group. These are themed recordings of London songs.
Record one. A Merry Progress to London DA/ZDA 46 (mono/stereo). Release group “A Merry Progress to London” by The Critics Group - MusicBrainz
Record two. Sweet Thames Flow Softly DA/ZDA 47 (mono/stereo). Also Vocalion CDSL 8424, 2006. Release group “Sweet Thames Flow Softly” by The Critics Group - MusicBrainz
(Note that I added Record One just today, and the associated Bandcamp download. I added Record Two some months ago, the CD, even though I now have the LP. It has SPARS code ADD, which doesn’t necessarily imply a new mix, but it could. I suspect it is due to digital editing rather than going after the multitracks (hence technically a new mix) but it’s not specified and I cannot tell a discernible difference between CD and LP. Record Two Sweet Thames Flow Softly from Ewan MacColl Bandcamp is just the CD master / rip.)
Now, they were released separately, never released as a box or a pair, as far as I know, this is corroborated by Discogs. Instead, they are denoted Record One and Record Two, respectively. Argo produced a number of records which could be classed as a series including recordings of Shakespeare that British Decca reissued as a massive CD box set. As far as I know they did not issue many box sets at the time.
It’s clear that these should be linked somehow, but I’m not sure what relationship to select. There is no release-group level relationship, which is fair enough - ‘Sweet Thames Flow Softly’ was reissued by the Vocalion label in 2006 whereas record one was not. So, it would stand to reason that the relationship would be at a release-level.
Alternatively, a release-group relationship may be better. For example, the LP was issued several times, including in mono and stereo variants. It is not a given that there would be a strict correspondence - and if we added the mono LP for both release groups, we would end up implying there was a direct correspondence between LP one and two when in fact the correspondence is between all variants to all variants ie the release group is the key thing that links them.
However, it’s unclear to me which relationship to use, if it exists at all. I suspect that the “next disc” relationship is a hangover from when discs were given their own release as on FreeDB, and it is deprecated accordingly.
I do not think a series is appropriate. A series of two records, but no series is specified on the label, so it would not be clear as to what to call it, except for the subtitle, which is on both “Anthology of London Songs”. Nonetheless, a series could satisfy the above as it can be of releases, or of release groups, so opinions on this would be welcome.
To this extent, my question is, should I re-appropriate it for this end? It is the only suitable release-level relationship and it does the job, and there is apparently no release group-level relationship which is suitable
Alternatively, should I create a ticket with the above to revive the relationship and make use of it for situations such as this?
Apologies for the verbose text above, but it’s worth getting an idea of the background behind this. Thanks in advance.