Capitalization of extra title information

vzell · March 30, 2023, 6:08am

Please lowercase ETI…

jesus2099 · March 30, 2023, 4:16pm

Lowercase ETI (like current MB guidelines)
Title Case ETI

0 voters

UltimateRiff · March 30, 2023, 5:18pm

I don’t have any strong feelings about remix ETI, but lowercase ETI does look a bit wrong to me on deluxe edition release titles, for example:

that said, is it ETI? I mean it is literally version information, but it feels a bit more title-y to me for some reason… either way, I think adding an example or two to the guidelines might be in order, as right now there’s only recordings

darkshyne · May 30, 2023, 1:56am

I just randomly went through ~20 albums on Wikipedia with “Remix” etc. in the track titles. All of them capitalized it, as I would expect it.

Comrade_Mike · May 30, 2023, 6:42am

They shouldn’t be: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music - Wikipedia

For titles of works and releases, descriptive phrases in parentheses or after dashes, such as “remix”, “acoustic version” and “remastered”, should not be considered part of song titles and should not be capitalized.

chiark · May 30, 2023, 12:51pm

my view: edition information should be in the disambiguation comment. Such things don’t alter the title of an album.

eg Artist releases an album called “Random Example Name for an Album”. It is called “Random Example Name for an Album” in all editions, not “Random Example Name for an Album: Deluxe Edition” or “Random Example Name for an Album: Not the Deluxe Edition”.

Further, but potentially controversial: when digital stores have no way to indicate deluxe editons other than putting it in the title, we should ignore that.

(Probably more controversial: deluxe edtion is so over-used, it is pointless as a disambiguation and should be in the annotation)

reosarevok · May 30, 2023, 1:55pm

That’s also questionable - I’ve seen a bunch of Latin rap stuff that gets “re-released” with bonus tracks years later and they call it a deluxe edition, and that seems to certainly be intended as part of the new re-release’s title. I agree it’s overused, but as usual my view is “does it have different cover art, probably mentioning the deluxe thing? then it’s title, if not disambiguation” Personal view, not guideline, though.

chiark · May 30, 2023, 2:23pm

I think you can infer they want you to know it’s a deluxe edition, different to the standard edition, and you might want to buy it. That it is “seeming to certainly be intending” to re-title the work to include that seems a large stretch.

But, if you look at the covers of the two examples UltimateRiff supplied - the words “[Whatever] Editon” are not in brackets, but they are on the MB titles.

So if they’re part of the title, they should be:

Elf: Original Motion Picture Score: The Deluxe Edition
Business Up Front/Party in the Back: Diamond Edition

That would remove the question of whether to title ETI, no?

reosarevok · May 30, 2023, 2:29pm

If a release cover said “Track Title Techno Remix” we would still do “Track Title (techno remix)”. Isn’t this the same?

chiark · May 30, 2023, 3:22pm

Not according to Guess Case!

But also, is that a common way we see mixes represented? Are they not usually already in brackets, or separated from the track title by some other method? Even on the two edition examples, the “edition” is on a separate line from the title (probably because it’s not part of the actual title I would say).

Perhaps a more salient comparison would be “Release Title Remixes”, and… are these the same?

darkshyne · June 5, 2023, 12:40pm

“(techno remix)” seems even worse than “(Techno remix)”. What even should be capitalized, then?

reosarevok · June 5, 2023, 1:07pm

Titled remixes: stuff like Track Title (Techno Rules the World remix)

biocv · June 25, 2023, 3:32pm

Yeah, that can be confusing. I was confused about that as well and once started this thread.

tigerman325 · April 26, 2026, 5:39pm

What parts of the ETI, should be capitalized? I thought and have always seen that everything in ETI should be lowercase except proper nouns. The guidelines have always seem to say this.

See Edit #145040502 - MusicBrainz

derat · April 26, 2026, 6:05pm

I’ve commonly seen things like “(Deluxe Edition)” capitalized in release and release group titles. I’m not sure whether that’s correct, though.

The ETI guidelines say that this is still considered ETI when it’s in a release (as opposed to track) name. I don’t see any special exceptions for releases in the ETI guidelines.

With that said, “Album Title (deluxe edition)” just looks weird to me (as a native English speaker), so I’m sympathetic to the argument that it would make more sense for these to be capitalized. (I think that “Single Title (Someone remix)” looks fine to me, though, and it’d be weird to use different capitalization for the same title in different places.)

I think that the ETI guidelines ought to include a release example to make the intent (whatever it is) clear. If the intent is for “deluxe edition” to be lowercased, then “Guess case” should be updated to do this automatically.

ernstlx · April 26, 2026, 7:29pm

If you’ve seen it often enough, it will start to seem familiar, and that’s regardless of the language. I now find Discogs’ capitalization (first letter of each word) quite normal, even for German titles (native language German).

What is correct is always a matter of definition. That’s no reason to change the rules.

Stelko77 · April 26, 2026, 8:53pm

I believe lowercase ETI would apply to examples such as “mix” “remix” “acoustic” descriptions of tracks or releases, however i believe that “(Remixes, Pt. 1)” etc would be capitalized in English.

(remixes, pt. 1) just looks incorrect.

“Guess Case” seems to follow this logic as well.
singular is ETI / description ex: “Song Title (Someone’s remix)” [lowercase]
plural is part of the release title ex: “Song Title (Remixes, Pt. 1)” [capitalized first letter]
when you start adding series numbering and things into the ETI, it quickly starts to look ridiculous and improper in English.

Stelko77 · April 27, 2026, 5:04pm

Another example that supports the plurals vs. singulars approach is when an artist is inconsistent with their remix release titling such as some releases without the parenthesis; an example would be
ODESZA - Spinback Remixes
ODESZA - My Friends Never Die (remixes)
and that’s without considering less common examples like (the remixes) or (the remix ep).

I believe the goal of the guidelines is to create consistency, not the opposite as is displayed here.
I’m suggesting that (Remixes) or (Deluxe Edition) are essentially functioning more as a subtitle, rather than ETI or disambiguation.
Admittedly (Deluxe Edition) has a much weaker argument than (Remixes) here for being a subtitle. Personally I think in many cases (deluxe edition) in lowercase could be delegated to a lowercase disambiguation, but my understanding is if it’s on the cover it’s part of the title.

and what about something like Alive (Reimagined) by Empire of the Sun? “Reimagined” is definitely part of the title, as it’s displayed on the cover, but do the parenthesis have the final say as to whether it’s ETI, and lowercased?

I mentioned it in my last comment, but the Guess Case feature follows this logic as well, and I don’t think that’s a mistake. I believe the ETI guidelines page included only singular examples intentionally, and the Guess Case seems to support that.

IvanDobsky · April 29, 2026, 6:01am

As I’ve understood it, when written on a cover Deluxe Edition can stay as capitals as part of the title. Things get moved to the ETI only when they are not on the cover. Special edition, deluxe edition, 20th anniversary release, etc.

Simple answer is to make a script in Picard to fix these as are required in one’s own music collection. The guidelines for titles, ETI, punctuation are all a little “different” and easier to fix in the tagging.

jesus2099 · April 29, 2026, 9:21pm

If it’s printed, I guess as subtitle:

Title of Album: Deluxe Edition

And if they are not printed, as comment:

Title of Album (deluxe edition)