Sorry if this topic already exists but I have many muted tags, including soundtracks.
I stumbled upon a fictional artist called Belle, from a recent film.
You can see that the same artist is used on English, Japanese and German recordings (and maybe others).
The artist is currently linked as voiced by the original Japanese artist and by the English dubbing artist (German is missing?).
I don’t see the point of having an artists that represents several different voices, as we should not use it on any recordings, then.
I would rather use artist credit (AC) if the tracks are credited to Belle: 中村佳穂 credited as Belle.
I just fixed some Japanese recordings as I was on a random Japanese release, but I would completely remove this artist and use AC, if it was only me.
FWIW there’s a request of allowing to select a language in the “performs the voice of” relationship, that makes sense to me but requires some coding changes:
I would not say that what you did is “fixing” the recordings, if they are actually credited to “Belle” on releases - if that’s the case, you messed up the recordings
On the contrary, the point of an “artist” character really just to reflect the official discography of the character, since in “actual” relationships, we would link the real person to the recording to represent the real vocal performance. There is no reason to remove recordings from the MB recording discography if that’s how they are officially credited.
The standardized way character song credits are formatted in Japan would be something like “ベル(CV:中村佳穂)”, which in MB would be credited to both the MB Character Artist and the MB Person Artist, not deleting either.
Thanks for linking me here @jesus2099. In brief, my view is that there should be a different artist for each portrayal of a fictional character where the character is the named artist.
In more words: first, looking at the edit history of that album, I appreciate it was me 18 months ago that linked two Voice Artists to one MB artist - I suspect it was a shortcut instead of untangling which recordings were which VA. At least I left myself a TODO in optimism.
There are many situations where the performer and the character are intentionally different, and Fictitious Artist - MusicBrainz Wiki recommends making the real-world person > fictional person chains.
Ideal situation:
A language option is added to the “voice of / voiced by” AR. The AR is explicit in including fictional characters, where dubbing is feasible or likely depending on the medium, and this would help out. Use attributes and disambigs on the Recordings for different languages, but keep same artist (like when a real-world person re-records their own music for a different language.) To me this is similar to having one ‘band’ Artist entry even when its members change (such as the Sugababes).
Existing situations where I don’t think AC would be appropriate:
Miley Cyrus performs in real life, but also performed as fictional characters Hannah Montana and Ashley O. Just using AC mixes these all together.
Bands like Spinal Tap, and groupings like The Muppets, where the members are explicitly not real people, but some of those members are credited individually on some tracks or other releases, which would get lost with only-ACs.
Confusing situations
As noted, when a film character is dubbed in various languages. I’d perhaps use disambig and go for something like Belle (fictional character, voiced by Nakamura in Japanese) and Belle (fictional character, voiced by McNeill in English). This is common in animation; I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a dubbed live-action musical but it’s not impossible. Language/voiced by AR would be smoother though.
Artist Credit (and only if necessary)
Musical theatre. There would be an explosion in fictional artists and we don’t need 500 various Jets and Sharks listed! But more importantly, in my experience, official cast recording releases normally credit the musicians and performers directly and not the characters, so sticking to usual MB guidance of noting ‘what is written’, there’s no need to use AC or create the fictional characters.
Characters being voiced by different people is totally normal. None of these artists should be split in any reasonable interpretation of existing guidelines and intent behind them:
I just have set recording artists from tracks where I supposed they were right, but maybe they were wrong.
At least, real performer set on recording, I think it’s less wrong than Japanese+English voices, as English voice is unheard in the recording.
I don’t have more time to spend on this release so I created a topic for other people, more aware of this soundtrack or of soundtracks in general, take the lead.
Yeah, I’m recovering from illness and I think you’re right, im not sure i started that post well. It’s unnecessary duplication if the recordings have the correct languages, and the information is in say Annotations.
If the voiced by AR could have date attributes, like groups memberships do, this would cover the “changed over time” attribute which does feel natural and normal.
My copy of that album has the lead track performed by Belle in English, but other tracks by Belle performed in Japanese, with the tracks having the corresponding VA. The Japanese release of the album (unsurprisingly) has the lead track in Japanese.
And that track is just called “U” in both languages… so thats confusion!
I have the BVCL-1173 release, which is the Japanese CD. In the credits for the CD, there are five tracks with the vocalist credited to 中村佳穂. There is no mention of the character Belle. If I was creating the release, I would have attributed the recordings to 中村佳穂 only, as jesus2099 did with the edits to those five recordings. There is no “U” track on my CD; that was only put on the US release so I can’t speak to how it was credited. It was only released in Japan as a ‘single’, which I also do not have.
If there is a version of a song recorded by the English voice actor, then that is clearly a different recording with a different vocalist.
I might be coming in too late, but if I’m reading the whole thread correctly, then we’re all in agreement at this point?
If the tracks are not credited to Belle in any way in the tracklist, then yes, in this specific case they should be credited to whoever the tracklist lists
So this is a case where the CD’s booklet credits differs from the digital release’s credits. The CD’s booklet doesn’t actually have an artist field though, whereas for the digital release, the label (same label as the CD) has intentionally picked certain artists instead of all performers.
Since neither are the same, I’d suggest going with the standardized form at the recording level:
“ベル(CV:中村佳穂)”, which in MB would be credited to both the MB Character Artist and the MB Person Artist, not deleting either.
