I just like browsing stuff by the default ‘release’ tab in MB, but I should probably let go of that (and the MB UI should surface those other elements a bit better).
I agree, the current UI really prioritizes releases. It would be nice if there were more detailed relationships between series and artist (like created by or hosted by).
My bugbear for tagging with standalone recordings is that we don’t have ready access to relationships - e.g. I’m not sure if I would be happy with removing the first recording date from the title. I think it’s a primary piece of information that a lot of people use when browsing/searching and tagging.
Obviously, there are situation where you have no choice but to include the broadcast date in the title (for example, if there is no episode title or episode number). It’s worth noting though that dates can be used as the sorting number in a series which I think would be a superior way to browse through episodes.
At the moment, the lack of tagging support is definitely the biggest problem. Picard would need to support using a series as a release, or someone would need to develop a plugin.
The other information that is missing is cover art, for modern releases like podcasts. But I could probably live without.
Yeah, podcasts in general are a little trickier. Podcasts don’t really have “broadcast” dates per se and it’s not always clear what is a standalone recording and what is a proper release. For example, Hardcore History has very clearly demarcated “releases” but most podcasts do not.
I’ve started a dedicated thread for collecting more detailed feedback.