Are made-up digital compilations acceptable in MB?

MusicBrainz
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Hi everyone!

I wasn’t even aware that this thread was happening! I’m a grad student for library and information sciences and I’ve been interested in getting into the open data community. I thought MusicBrainz would be a great place to start. I’m in the process of learning, so I’m sorry for any problems. I’m trying to learn the system but it can be pretty intimidating at first and a lot of this data isn’t easily categorizable. I realize now I should have talked on the forum before starting a large project! I would like to work within the MusicBrainz system and not bombard it.

I am very fascinated by the Eurovision Song Contest and, as an archiving student, I have a fascination in the metadata surrounding it. I noticed a bit of a void regarding Eurovision. That, combined with the amount and type of relationships MusicBrainz can accommodate, seemed like a great match. I learn best by doing and sometimes I’m more passion than forethought.

I completely understand the desire not to abuse the MusicBrainz database by adding compilations based on solely personal preference. Useless data can provide a lot of noise to results. I truly do not want this to be the case with my data. If it is more of a nuisance than a help, I entirely support removing it. This can be data that I manage independently.

https://archive.org/details/eurovision-song-contest

There are already several full collections on the Internet Archive, which are a collection of official recordings and unofficial rips of varying quality. There are also many torrents of varying quality. They contain very poor metadata. This metadata could be used for both, really. While this is for my personal Plex and Lidarr libraries, to match the albums and have linked metadata about artists through MusicBrainz, it is also a personal archival project stemmed from me discovering this starting collection.

I am hoping to create an archive of only the live Eurovision performance recordings that I have collected and curated. I am wondering if ‘live’ was perhaps a better option than bootleg. These are not official releases and are based off of semifinals, finals, and nationals live performances. So, these live versions are distinct from the official releases, and are also not officially released as albums; they are live events that I have curated into individual files. Many official releases don’t have disqualified entries, semifinals performances or pulled entries. It is further complicated when Eurovision became a two- and three-day event.

I would like to chronicle the metadata regarding these performances, such as the event venue and location. The track order is based on their running order before the contest switched to semi finals, after which the track order is alphabetized by country. I am doing my best to use existing artists, but I have been unsure how to handle the release group.

Perhaps live broadcast is a better section for these? I have struggled to best categorize these in a way that are distinct, but related to, the current official Eurovision releases. It has also been pointed out that ‘Digital Media’ for older releases is incorrect, but I am not sure how to categorize digitized analogue video recordings. I am also unsure how to handle cover art for these.

Is there a place on MusicBrainz for information like this? I would love to correct my information to make it useful within the current system, but I can also remove them or merge them in the event that it is more trouble than it is worth. Much of the feedback I directly received has been to remove it, so that is why I marked them for deletion.

Thanks

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Thanks for that clarification. So it isn’t intended that these entries be lists of the single versions of the songs. You are hoping to catalog recordings of the actual Eurovision contest performances.

I still think the Event/Setlist area is the most appropriate place to start. But, following the examples on the Event/Setlist documentation page, a setlist is a list of the songs (works), rather than recordings of those songs.

So the question is, does MusicBrainz have a place for recordings that aren’t part of any release, and can an Event setlist be linked to them?
In my memory, recordings that aren’t tied to a release are considered “orphans,” and undesirable.

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I started this thread and let me just say I don’t think you were bombarding MB, if anything I started the thread precisely because I’m impressed with the work you put in, and how much you care… and I felt guilty undoing that work.

On the events metadata, @Beckfield already mentioned event setlists (something I wasn’t aware of), maybe that’s more in line with what you’re trying to do.

People have also made the suggestion you should be able to tag your music collection with series — this is not yet supported, but it’s something to consider.

Releases like the one from archive.org can probably be added as bootleg releases, but the release metadata should match the release, not the event. E.g. the title should be the bootleg title, the release date the date the bootleg was released. And there is also the issue of the recordings, a studio recorded single isn’t the same as the live performance. And not the same as a video recording of a song contest.

About video, I don’t have much to say, I know there have been many discussions about this, but it’s not an area I’m interested in. I’m sure other people can help.

I’m sure there’s a lot to work to do with ESC metadata is you’re passionate about it. And you’re certainly welcome do so. Maybe you can start with getting the event metadata in order (here’s the event series), that seems to be your main interest. You can also work on the official releases, and even add bootlegs if you’d like. But actual bootlegs, not releases representing events.

This issue is either a release exists or it doesn’t. I suspect many of ESC performances don’t exist as recordings, unless someone demuxed the audio from the video recording of the live performance. Most of the recording you added to those releases were the studio-recoded singles. If there are bootlegs of such recordings, you can add them to MB, but they need to exist first. The date of such bootleg would be the date it was released on the Internet. Same thing with cover art, its cover art it whatever was used as cover art — if the bootleg exists —, and none if it was released without cover art.

In any case, your help is welcome, and this situation let to a useful discussion.

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A recording series is used for those playlist of things like magazine Awards. Or “100 song you must listen to” type lists. (not an area I do much in… so not the best to reply)

This certainly now sounds more like Events as it is supposed to be the live shows… bit like the Glastonbury series.

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Welcome!

There are some good pages on MB to
read. Maybe you haven’t seen them as they are easily missed

https://musicbrainz.org/doc

The different types of releases are described in
https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases

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well, poorly named IMHO.

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Yep. And confusing, but it is where lists like this used to be pushed. (I am only repeating old posts, I don’t make the guidelines)

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These are all good points. I can understand the difference between linking to singles versions as opposed to tailor-made tracks for these live performances.

Plex and Lidarr both use release groups as a means to match their albums, I believe. I think changing to an event would make this not work with those. I’m not opposed, just an observation.

Almost all of these Eurovision performances exist as digitized videos through YouTube and, if I had to guess, the Internet Archive versions are extracted from these.

Perhaps this collection of releases shouldn’t exist until I’ve formally released it through the Internet Archive and can link to that specific instance.

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I understand. Just a comment on the challenges of understanding MB. Precedence and consistency with prior use has higher priority

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It may also make sense to push at the Plex and Lidarr sides. Make them more aware of Events, Series and other data types at MB. There is logic to try and make these Releases to fit into those other project’s limitations, but you’ll always find pushback from some editors for twisting the MB system due to limitations of other projects.

The way Glastonbury is covered by Events is interesting. This also manages to cover multiple stages and multiple levels of data. Some years better covered than others.

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Thank you, I will look into Glastonbury. I have been trying to find a good ‘precedence’ that’s similar enough to Eurovision.

These are also very good points about software limitations. Individual tracks that have embedded MusicBrainz artist metadata and identifiers work, even if it’s not considered a ‘matched’ release group.

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I’m not familiar with Plex and Lidarr, but MB has its own approach to modelling things. Speaking from the experience of loading my music into
itunes, you’ll have the challenge of understanding and managing the gaps between the two models.

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To be clear, if I were to officially submit my curated collection of Eurovision Song Contest live performance audio to Internet Archive, would this then be more formally considered a ‘bootleg release’ if I directly linked to the download on the Internet Archive?

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I noticed that some of the album art you added to the digital releases are clearly from vinyl and cassettes. Meaning that those must exist, either official or bootleg. Why not submit them using the appropriate medium format, using the names as found on that album art?

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This is definitely something I could look into doing.

Some years don’t have official compilation releases in any medium that I can find, such as Eurovision 1996. The closest I’ve been able to find is VHS recordings of the event. The cover art for 96 is for, what I assume, is a bootleg CD. This bootleg is missing performance songs.

Before 2000, official releases are hard to find or non-existent.

Also, in some cases, official releases are also not ‘complete’. These official releases don’t have all of the songs performed during that year, for whatever reason. For instance, Eurovision 74.

This official release has 12 tracks while the live event had 17 performances.

I understand that MusicBrainz isn’t for creating personal playlists, but there is no comprehensive collection of Eurovision. I have created this data for myself and was hoping to find some way to share it usefully for people who also manage metadata and music collections.

But it does not feel like MusicBrainz is created for this kind of collection, at least not without an accessible, accompanying release from the Internet Archive. I have already done the metadata work and, when I release a collection on IA, I can consider adding them again with community input.

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I have seen many “albums” hosted by the Internet Archive (e.g. ripped soundtracks from video games or collections of songs that were posted to Soundcloud) added to MusicBrainz as bootleg releases. Please be aware of MusicBrainz’s policy about not linking to copyright-infringing pages, though.

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This is definitely something I have considered. I don’t intend to link to torrents of official album release. These are not the official digital recordings that are released through a record label, they are extracted from live performances. As I have stated, there doesn’t seem to be official recordings for many of these songs anywhere. Only this extracted digital audio from from live performances. I’m not sure where this falls under copyright. This is intended as an archive to make songs accessible that are otherwise difficult to find or curate.

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I noticed that this release ( https://musicbrainz.org/release/7b9affba-9b3e-45ab-9962-18ef084ae19e ) is part of a release group series Israeli Eurovision Compilations - MusicBrainz.

There is similar one at discogs that has more information on the history of these releases in Israel. https://www.discogs.com/label/1586120-Israeli-Eurovision-Compilations notes:

Most of the compilations were out on the local CBS Records, but not all of them. The company that made each compilation, licensed tracks that participated in each contest, from various labels. Because of licensing difficulties, none of the compilations includes all of the songs from any given contest.

So, like some releases of recordings of other live events, the releases are incomplete. However, they exist as releases and are in the release group series above.

Without evidence of authorisation/licensing, the recordings you have appear to have to be considered to be bootlegs. Bootlegs of live recordings use a variety of audio sources with different levels of quality. Some are one contiguous recording, a few have the audience clapping etc removed and some are patched together from various different sources for reasons such as damaged tapes etc.

If there are actual releases, you could document as bootlegs that are separate and distinct from other releases such as the Israeli releases.

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I can completely understand licensing issues leading to incomplete collections through official releases. I’m sure Eurovision was even more of a licensing nightmare before the 2000s. Official releases are definitely important for those only seeking to have the official releases. They are also important for services that depend on MusicBrainz.

For managing a digital collection - or any collection - this will lead to multiple copies of a song or releases in order to have the entire collection. This is excluding the fact that some don’t seem to have ever been released through official compilations for, I’m assuming, licensing reasons. I’m not even sure they all exist as official singles. Eurovision 96 had a semifinal before semifinals were officially introduced, and the cut contestants do not exist on any compilations. Many songs were never on official records because they never made it to the finals because of early withdrawal or disqualification.

I could ‘officially’ do all singles, but I don’t want a tangle of over 1500 discrete tracks. While this is acceptable or even preferable for some, it is not for me. I don’t feel the need for my personal collection to be relegated to ‘official’ release recordings. I would need to create a ton of likely unofficial singles. I prefer a streamlined, sensical overview of the contest performances.

This was intended for like-minded digital collectors, and it is not linked to any ‘official’ recording. Before ~2000, there were no ‘definitive’ and ‘inclusive’ official recordings. My collection was an unofficial ‘bootleg’ collection of all performances, absent the often seemingly arbitrary licensing restrictions.

It does not appear that MusicBrainz is intended for this. Even uploading a compilation to the Internet Archive to link back to so I can upload the metadata feels more like a loophole than anything. This seems to be metadata I should manage independently.

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So, some compilations are not complete. Too bad, but that would not be a reason to not create them as is. Some of the official studio recorded releases are not complete either, like for Israel 1999.

And that’s another thing. Don’t use the covers of the official studio recorded releases for your live events. It confused me into thinking you were creating duplicate release groups, when in fact these live releases differ as much from the studio release as any band’s studio and live albums.

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