I do a lot of data importing from Metal Archives which doesn’t have a primary/secondary type distinction. The types on metal archives are Single, EP, Full-length, Compilation, Collaboration, Split, Live, and Demo. For Comp, Live, and Demo, musicbrainz has those as secondary types. For my additions, I usually pick a primary that best matches between Album/EP/Single.
So for the release group, I originally imported it as an EP/Demo given that it is on the shorter side of things and primarily listed as a demo. https://musicbrainz.org/edit/97611962
I wanted to get a better sense from the community as to which is the best practice. Leave empty, use album/ep/single as appropriate, or rely on the other tag.
In general, I don’t think primary types are always 100% necessary. You aren’t required to select one when submitting, so that in and of itself is reason enough to assume it’s fine to enter a release without one. I feel the more we try to pigeonhole releases into necessary boxes, the more the data suffers and can lead to contradictions. It feels limiting just for the sake of it.
I also think a lot of times artistic intent simply doesn’t align with them. If the artist/band (or even the genre they work in) has different ideas, definitions, and parameters for what these types mean, then they should be represented that way as close as we can within reason.
In the case of black metal, I don’t think it’s out of pocket to say that the overwhelming majority of these bands and artists would consider their demo releases as “demos” and that’s it. It is incredibly rare to see a label, musician, band, or fan in the scene promote, market, or refer to a demo as an “album+demo” or “EP+demo”. It’s just a demo. So I think it’s safe to simply tag them as such. The release in question was marketed as the fifth demo. So it being the fifth entry in the “demo” section of the artist page seems the most appropriate place for it, along with the four previous demos above it.
Just my opinion, of course! But that opinion does come with years of being involved with bands, labels, buying, selling and collecting black metal and similar genres. I’m sure you have similar experiences @IAmTheBlackMetal
I’d tend put something in to a category when possible. Trouble is we have a number of editors who follow Discogs rules where something has to actually be quote somewhere to allow “album” “EP” “Single” to be selected.
First I’d look at the artists own website. Second I’d look for some fan based website with a catalogue. Maybe I’d check Wikipedia.
Generally Albums are usually obvious. It is Single vs EP that gets a bit harder to predict.
I’ll also roll out the same old Single vs EP quote from Seal The difference between an EP and a single is that a single has one good track and one throwaway track on it. An EP has three good tracks and is meant to be listened to as a whole.
The biggest guide I follow is - what are other editors of that specific artist doing? I’d aim to try and keep demos together instead of a split between nothing, album, EP, single… I like tidy.
I used to add these as demo-only, following the same logic as @Vatican - they are just known as a ‘demo’ in the scene/s.
Eventually I was corrected, and told that there should always be a primary type set. So that’s what I’ve been doing since. But I don’t know if there is a official guideline/maybe it’s just the opinion of some editors?
I agree that bands definitely consider releases as just demos but I’ve also come to accept that bands and labels very rarely care about documenting releases cleanly for archival purposes. So while trying to stay true what the bands intend is important, it’s also important to stick to a consistent standard across the site. I’m fine with either way, I just want to ensure that there’s consistency.
There must be reasons why someone would hold that opinion, but I’m having trouble trying to think of any off the top of my head. A 100% firm requirement on the millions of entries would inevitably lead to incorrect information, always and without fail. I can only assume that’s why they aren’t already necessary.
For sure, I can understand that
And yeah, if you’re truly fine with either, I think we should keep it simple and sort demos as demos. I definitely plan on chipping away at BM releases from Discogs and MetalArchives a lot more in the coming months, so it’s good to have someone else like yourself already working in this corner of the site!
in my opinion the primairy type tell more about the format:
single (1 or 2 tracks)
EP (a few tracks)
album (more then a few tracks)
while the secondairy type tells more about what is on the album:
bootleg
live
demo
…
thats why i think you its not one or the other.
i understand dat nobody in the “scene” ever refers to it as an album+demo. but at the end of the day, it is an album of EP with demo music on there.
i think the main issue is that the way it is visually shown on musicbrainz artist pages is to group them by “primairy type”+“secondairy type”. maybe if there where option to group them by “primairy type” OR “secondairy type” OR both, it would solve the issue of the default both grouping being weird in some scenes?
It is true that that EP + Album designators in MB aren’t necessarily connected to the real world uses of the term - which is necessary when a database is trying to stay consistent across different genres and scenes. It’s really about having machine-readable data.
In that light the primary status types might be expected by some software or tagging setups for display or sorting.
And “album + demo” does give us some information than just “demo” - it’s going to be longer than I’m used to for a demo. The downside there is that the editor ends up making the call, not the artist, which can be a grey line. Though honestly I don’t know if I care that much about the difficulty in defining EP vs album, it’s always been pretty intuitive to me, based on release length and information. The other downside is that it feels incorrect to see a “demo” listed in the database as an “EP”, which I presume is what prompted you to make this change. Having the database look wrong isn’t to be scoffed at.
But same as @IAmTheBlackMetal for me it’s mainly important to be able to edit with confidence without stuff being endlessly changed back and forth/wasting time.
Maybe @reosarevok (the style lead) can enlighten us on the official stance?
Sexregler is a forty-five minute album, but it’s only 1 song
Infinite Cum is a six-minute EP, but it has all 53 songs crammed on a single side of a 7” record, with nothing on the B side. Less material on there than an Aretha Franklin single.
It seems we might be veering off into the age-old conundrum of “Is it an album? A single? An EP?” territory, which feels a bit outside the scope of the “Can we simply leave the primary type empty?"
Or perhaps they are simply two conversations that are inherently linked the more we discuss them
The trouble is there is no one answer. There are “Demo Tapes” and there are “Demo Albums”. I have “demo tapes” that then get later referred to as “the first album”. It is all language from artists who really are not worrying how someone will categorise their music. Not everything fits into neat boxes.
i think the only reason the feeld isn’t mandatory is because if you make something mandatory you must fix all open conflict. which would mean that you would have to fix ALL albums that don’t have a primairy type.
I think this is also one of the biggest and most important reasonings in being consistent. The point of a database like this, other than being archival, is to allow for the data to be used in programming. After all, programming is only ever as good as the data it uses. I even originally opted to fill in the primary fields rather than leaving them blank because the import script from metal archives defaults it to album for a demo import.
In a perfect world for adding metal releases, demo would be a primary type but I recognize that’s not necessarily the case outside of our niche subgenre. I am okay leaving blank and I’m also okay adding primaries but again as aerozol said,
The adding of primaries does help to highlight length regardless of number of songs.
If Demo was a Primary Release Group it would then cover the discussion here. A original Demo released by an artist would be a Demo no matter how many tracks were on it.
How would we then categorise that other type of demo? The reissue by a third party of demos? I am thinking especially bootleg compilations here. I think this is part of the reason Demo is a secondary category as you see “a bootleg album of demo tracks” or “a bootleg album of live tracks”. Most people will see demos on that secondary market.
I could see how Demo becoming a primary type would help the above bootlegs.
if you look closely you can see that there can only be set 1 primary type.
this is because a release can’t be an ALBUM & an EP or as SINGLE & an ALBUM.
but you can select multiple secondary types.
this is because an album CAN be a demo AND a live recording AND be a bootleg
so in my opinion the primary & secondary types are correct like they are now.
@sanojjonas I think that is what I was understanding was part of the proposal here. Merging all demos into one Primary Type without separating on size. Part of the reason there was the suggestion to leave the primary type blank.
I could see the merits either way.
Currently if I go into an unloved artist and find chaos with demos all over the place I will often tidy up to bring them together again. If I see four “album+demo” and two and just “demo”, then I’ll make them all “album+demo” to be consistent. But then that is also because I call them “demo albums”.
if you could see the page that would ONLY be filtered on each secondary type it wouldn’t be an issue.
you would have a list of demo’s, a list of live stuff, …
this would mean that some albums would be in multiple lists, but that doesn’t really matter.
i don’t think we should alter the data so they LOOK visually better. the data should be correct and there should be different types of viewing the data.
