Barcode Mystery

MusicBrainz
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For this Release Group

I couldn’t understand why Plex was telling me Standing Tall was playing, when what I was hearing was Don’t Hurt Me Baby.

I am fixing the 1996 re-release that has Don’t Worry Baby instead of Standing Tall for Track 9. It was in MB but had no Disc ID, artwork, nothing.

As you can see from the artwork I uploaded, the barcode on the example I have is 0 7863-66508-2 1.

But that very same barcode is on the two instances of the 1995 release with the different track listing (which I GUESS should be merged).

The existing “stub” of the 1996 re-release has barcode 8 8985-43311-2 2 associated with it, which is apparently a barcode for some version of this release – I’m guessing for the 1995 release, but I don’t know. You can look it up in one of the barcode looker-upper websites, and it finds it, but I don’t know which particular release it might be. If you look it up by barcode in discogs, it isn’t found.

I’ve changed the barcode for the 1996 release I’m editing.

For this instance of (ostensibly) the 1995 release, it has the 1996 re-release barcode 078636650821. But the barcode on the artwork associated with the release has 0 20831-1324-2 80, which MB does not recognize as a valid EAN barcode.

For the other instance of (ostensibly) the 1995 release, it has the 1996 re-release barcode 078636650821, but has no cover art uploaded for me to compare with. I also think the last editor was a little paranoid about punctuation in catalog numbers.

What’s the brainy thing to do with the 1995 release(s)?

My inclination is to merge them, keep the uploaded artwork, and make the MB barcode match the barcode on the artwork, even if it isn’t an EAN barcode. But now I’m thinking it might be an overseas release, so…

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Replies before coffee needed re-writing… lol. :rofl: I got myself confused…

Short version “follow the art”… and “don’t merge”.

Longer version returned once I had more coffee…

Okay - so you are editing the 1996 edition with the replaced track. Matched the cat no, country and and track list and updating it with artwork and more complete details. That seems logical.

@fezTags added their version in 2019 so hopefully they will spot your edits and now come and comment… otherwise you are making a more cleaned up version.

What is interesting is your barcode is the same as the original release. Hence this confusion. So add a disambig to note track 9 changes. Possibly the 889854331122 barcode is added to your release at a later time when someone spots they forgot to update it on the artwork?

Maybe trying an edit note on @fezTags’s original edit would have got some answers to the barcode puzzle.

An Ebay search for 889854331122 brings up items, but none of them show that barcode and all have Standing Tall as track 9.

I would not merge the other two releases as they have different cat nos on the spine. One shown in artwork, the other in the annotation.

The barcode 0 20831-1324-2 80 will work if you drop the extra “0” from the end. Using an online scanner it tells me it is 020831132428. I would edit the release to show that number to match the artwork.

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I am not positive this is true – it assumes the first entry in MB was correct. Yes, the barcode gets used a ton, but so far I haven’t found a photograph of that barcode with the original “birthday girl” 1995 release tracklist. I’m not saying there isn’t one, this could be a case of “same barcode, different tracklist”, but being from Missouri: “Show Me”.

But dropping the zero does not match the artwork, and if you use a barcode looker-upper instead of a barcode validator on the dropped-zero version, look what you get. He’s nowhere near as pretty.

If I were to do anything on the release with the odd barcode on the art and a completely different barcode in MB, I’d update the database to match the art, and leave a notation that I think the barcode is odd. Maybe point back to this discussion thread. That would be “following the art” as you put it. (I like that, BTW).

This is a real education in the record business.

I do hope @fezTags comes back.

Thanks for looking.

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Hello. I read the whole thread and I’m not sure I understand the issue. Does the attached picture help?

1690567676451827741499812686795
16905676764518277414998126867951920×1440 212 KB

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I was also starting to get that feeling… so you may be right. Hit EBay with a search - often you get extra photos on there that may show the combo.

Quick search soon found it… so the track list is legit: 078636650821 on EBay with Standing Tall as track 9

I’ve never used that UPC lookup site, so can’t make any comment as to where it gets its data. All we can do is show the exact barcode as we read it. This is why I will scan a barcode as it is shown in the image using https://online-barcode-reader.inliteresearch.com/.

Look up that barcode at Discogs and EBay and you mainly get Lorrie.

Perfect. That helps as it tells @trleith that they need to make a new release for their copy and revert the edits being done on your release. Can you add that artwork to your release? Thanks (don’t worry it is a rough photo - it shows the important parts for ID purposes)

Short version of the issue is - track 9 changes on some editions. And the Release Groups seems to have a overlapped confusion of versions. You and @trleith have a copy with the alternate track 9, but both have different barcodes.

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Picture uploaded! (17 characters was not enough to post)

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Thanks!!

Going to do what @IvanDobsky says. Basically right now. He beat me to the explanation.

For everyone’s information: There was apparently under new Sony ownership a 2017 re-issue of the 1996 re-issue. Don’t know any more than this.

We’re left with the mystery of the 1995 release where the barcode in MB doesn’t match the artwork uploaded with it. As I said above, my inclination is to make MB match the art.

I don’t know what to make of the 1995 release with the same barcode as my 1996 release example and all those different catalog numbers. I suspect the barcode on that release in MB is wrong, but I don’t really know. Can’t prove it. Won’t change it.

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Thanks.

I look at the font of your barcode, and look at the font of the 1996 editon of @fezTags and I guess someone edited the artwork of your copy and forgot to update the barcode. Later they realised they needed to do the barcode. So I guess yours is in the middle. An early 1996.

Surround it with accurate versions with artwork and it makes it easier to spot if it is a duffer.

The main aim is to improve the database. So this way we clean up some releases, and add a few more. We still have a lot of the options potentially missing but by the end of these various edits everything is better than it was. :smiley:

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If you could use Picard to attach the TOC from your copy to “your” release, that’d be good.

“My” Disc ID is the same as one of the 1995 versions, even though track 9 is different. Go figure.

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Almost certainly due to old pre-NGS data… your moving the DiscIDs is pretty certain to be legit.