"Belle and Sebastian" vs. "Belle & Sebastian"

MusicBrainz
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I know I know… I might have OCD :slight_smile:
But it makes me wonder, why would the same artist be named differently (see topic title). Same goes for their Late Night Tales releases…

What’s the logic/criteria behind this?
F.

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Different artists doing the artwork. Different people writing down the details on the cover. Maybe just trying to find some space, make it look neat. Or just trying to mess with the heads of those with OCD

I’ve seen some examples where both versions are used on the same Release. “&” is just shorthand for “and” so it is fair enough.

There is no logic.

Personally, for my own music collection, I try and keep it standard and usually banish the “&”.

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Thank you @IvanDobsky - OCD is a beast! :crazy_face:
F.

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Ah - but the OCD is why we are here cataloguing our music. :upside_down_face: :rofl: It is those “Normals” who are the weird ones who can’t appreciate everything neatly placed in the right place.

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Word of the week! Now I can enjoy my weekend! :yum:

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While not entirely applicable to music artists, in many contexts there is a qualitative difference between “and” and “&”. For example if John Smith writes a screenplay and at a later date Jane Jones comes and substantially modifies it, they will be credited as “John Smith and Jane Jones”. But if they write it as a team, then they get credited as “John Smith & Jane Jones”.

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Wow! Where does this come from? Never actually thought of it…
F.

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Personally my inclination is to ignore “and” vs “&” variations on individual releases and only use the main artist name - similarly to how I would handle a release printed with an all caps “BELLE AND SEBASTIAN”. There’s no evidence of artist intent for when to use or not use an ampersand; if anything, that “Late Night Tales” example suggests that they consider them interchangeable. In such a case the principle of standardizing irregularities should apply.

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“When writers perform services as a team, even if just for a single project, writing credit to the
team must be designated with an ampersand (“&”) between the names of the team members.
Use of the word “and” between writers’ names in a credit indicates that the writers did their work
separately, one usually rewriting the other.”

Again, not really applicable to music artists, but still a thing to consider.

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