Happy to do this. Is there any documentation about changing the style docs to add additional guidance and examples, or should I just edit the corresponding wiki page and ping @reosarevok to verify that what I wrote is reasonable?
To start out with, I’d like to add something like the following to a new “Remixes” section under “Special cases” in the Artist Credits page:
A recording that is a remix of another recording should typically be credited to the original recording’s artist, not to the remixer. The artist who remixed the song should be linked via a remixer relationship. The remixed song’s title (including any parenthetical information like the remixer’s name) should be preserved.
I think that this is the way that remixes are already entered, but I found the lack of documentation about remixes (other than the niche OC ReMix page) confusing when I was starting out. Thoughts about this, @reosarevok or anyone else?
(I know that I’m including some guidance about titles on the AC page, but it felt a bit cleaner than splitting it. Also happy to rewrite this to use imperative statements rather than “should be” if that’s preferred; the current docs are a mix of the two styles. )
Pinging @reosarevok, I’ve given it a look (checked links etc) and the new remix section looks all good. And in line with “the usual standard”. Ready to transclude?
My only note is the use of the word ‘typically’ in there - if we don’t have any examples where this isn’t the case, then ‘should’ is probably vague enough and we can take out ‘typically’. Unless there are a bunch of cases where it doesn’t apply.
I’m sure there will be more complex or difficult examples that could be added to this eventually/as they arise.
Wild that we don’t have remix guidelines in the docs already (or did my search-fu fail me?)
the proposed guidelines refer to the recording’s artist, would this apply to the track artist too? I wonder if the track artist should be as credited on the release, whether the remixer of the original artist, and the recording is credited to the original artist either way
Maybe my imagination is too limited, but I’m having a hard time coming up with situations where I’d expect the track artist to differ substantially from the recording artist. I think that some differences make sense if the tracklist credits the artist using a different language from the recording, or the tracklist uses a nickname or alias or something along those lines, but it feels to me like the tracklist and the recording should credit the same underlying artist entity.
I can’t think of any specific examples right offhand, but in my experience it’s not unusual where the original artist isn’t credited on the release at all. we’ve got two options in these cases:
standardize the artist credit on the release by crediting the original artist on the track level
enter the release as credited and leave the original artist off of the track level. in this case, I’d think the recording artist and track artist will be different, credited to the original artist and remixer respectively
there’s advantages to both. standardization is usually good, but if someone is looking up a track credited to the remixer, as their tracks’ metadata would tell them, they might have a hard time finding it if it’s credited to the original artist.
having a different track and recording artist is not without precedent, as Classical Style recommends having different artists on the track and recording level (the performing artists and composer respectively)
edit: I came across an example of a release with several remixes credited to the remixer, not the original artist, tracks 9 and 21–23:
I think I still lean in the direction of standardization, especially since pretty much all of my editing nowadays is around online releases. I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the music industry, but I get the vibe that there are more “rules” (and proofreading) in the publishing of physical media than in the online world, and I’m uncomfortable with attributing things in a particular way just because of what someone typed into a text field when they were uploading an album to Bandcamp.
At the same time, I have to acknowledge that the rules occasionally break down in the physical world too, e.g. songs getting credited to the “original” artists in 26 Mixes for Cash even when the “original” material allegedly wasn’t used (but RJD lies so much in interviews that that could be a fib too…).
Do you think that changing my suggested remix guidelines to include something like “… except in cases where the tracklist explicitly credits the remixer” would be better? (This conflicts with the way that I entered credits for the release that started this thread, but my original goal was just to avoid having an unsanctioned remix album show up in the original artist’s discography.)
Sorry, I’ve got lost in this conversation… but one question I want to check. If “Artist A” remixes a track of “Artist B” and it is not official I assume this will not appear on “Artist B” discography?
What I mean is…
If someone on YouTube does a remix of a famous track then this should not appear under the original artist’s official discography.
If famous artist asks someone else to remix their track, then that should appear in the discography.
I just spent the day fixing those remixes up a bit, adding the remixes’ single releases and whatnot. the remixers mostly credited the original artists, oddly enough, it’s just the compilation that got the weird credits…
also, the release is still available, just not at that link. I’ve added the current link
I think that would be better, I believe
I believe in most cases, the remixer would be credited as the release artist, unless it’s a remix EP/album (example 1 and 2) with multiple remixers and one original artist. the reason being that usually the remixer is the one doing the releasing. perhaps that should be added to the guidelines too?
The remixer may be credited instead if the tracklist explicitly credits the song to the remixer rather than to the original artist.
Should it be a stronger “The remixer should be credited …”?
The release-credited-to-original-artist case was actually why I started this thread – it seems wrong to me for a remix album to appear in an artist’s discography if it wasn’t actually released by the artist
I got a bit sidetracked when I noticed that there don’t seem to be any guidelines about how to credit the individual recordings and figured I’d try to document that first since the rules for that seem more established and less controversial.
I plan to suggest a separate change to the “Artist” section of Style / Release - MusicBrainz stating that the artist responsible for the release (i.e. the remixer) should be credited for the release if the original artist had no involvement in its release. I’ll hold off on that until the recording artist discussion is complete, though.
In general, you should just enter the artist(s) as shown on the release (see the guidelines for artist credits). See Special Purpose Artist for what to enter when there is no proper artist or the artist is unknown.
I’d like to add something like this to the style page:
If a release was created without any participation from the credited artist (e.g. a remix or mashup album that was created without the knowledge of the original artist(s)), it is acceptable to instead credit the release to the artist who created it. Bootleg albums that just repackage the original artist’s work should be credited to the original artist and given the “bootleg” status.
If people agree that that’s a reasonable exception, are there any good examples demonstrating this? The only example that I have is the Kid Marscat / Secret Chiefs 3 remix album from the top of this thread, but it’s a confusing one since both Kid Marscat and SC3 (Trey Spruance) release music under a variety of artist names.
Maybe The Grey Album (credited to Danger Mouse rather than Jay-Z or The Beatles) or Q-Unit: Greatest Hits (credited to The Silence Xperiment rather than 50 Cent or Queen) would work. However, those don’t demonstrate the exception since neither of them were ever credited to any of the original artists, as far as I’m aware.
Again, my main motivation here is just to avoid having an unsanctioned remix album show up in the original artist’s discography. Maybe using the “bootleg” status would be a better way to accomplish that, but it doesn’t feel quite right for a derived work – the bootleg designation seems to typically be assigned to leaked material like NIN’s Purest Feeling or Jai Paul’s demo, or releases from bootleg/pirate labels that just repackage the original artists’ work.
I know I’ve seen many examples on Bandcamp, but I can’t seem to find them at the moment… where the original artist is credited as the release artist, that is.
a couple examples (1 [no MB] and 2 [MB]) from Vylet Pony, both singles credited to Porter Robinson. they both seem like they could be covers as well, which makes it all the more odd, actually.
I don’t recognise your examples, but to me this sounds like you have the correct aim. An unauthorised remixed should not sneak into an official discography.
Amazing work @derat. Because I’m neck deep in guidelines atm anyway I thought you might appreciate some teamwork. See thoughts mocked up below. This incorporates new feedback from @Silver_Skree, given on the Discord.
Could perhaps do with its own style page at this point
Intro:
Recording part:
Release part:
One other thing that @Silver_Skree brought up is:
“how does the question of whether or not one song is a remix of another, textually or otherwise, affect the relationships between recordings of works? Can the original track and remixed track both just be “recordings of” (no further attributes) the same Work? If not, what should be done instead?”
This relates in particular to the new ‘FELT’ example I’ve added above, which is a remix of a cover of a original. Is it a recording of [original work]?
Thoughts on the Discord were that it seems needlessly complicated to create new works, so yes, link it all to the one parent. If we agree on this then…
(He says, after absolutely scrambling to clean up the FELT recording and release in question.)
I’d prefer to say it’s “a remix of an arrangement of an original” as, after my time here on MBz, I’m very sensitive to the term ‘cover’ being applied to derivatives works that are so transformative as to warrant their own Work entity, as they often are in the context of Touhou arrangement circles The whole over-use (IMO) of the ‘cover recording’ pigeonhole is one of my highly specific and nerdy pet-peeves.
Anyway, going on a complete tangent for just a sec, I read this earlier in the thread and had to chime in:
Ok, so recently, I was cleaning up Metroid Metal on MBz, right? They were a total mess because of massive confusion across releases and recordings as to whether to credit “Stemage” or “Metroid Metal.” To recount the chronological order of events, Stemage founded Metroid Metal as a website (and what would later become a group) and started posting covers of Metroid music on there. So a standalone recording series makes sense for tracking those, right? A website isn’t exactly a release. But then! Donators to the site were mailed discs of the music that was posted on the site. I don’t have a copy of any of those discs, so I’ve refrained on doing too much editing on them aside from elucidating on what the hell they are because this is already confusing. But the songs on the site are released under Metroid Metal’s group identity but the physical discs (if we take the original editors’ words at face value) credit Stemage as the track artists.
Ssssooooo, to me, this demonstrates a principle where a Release’s track list having different credits from the Recording items that fill it makes sense, because the crediting on a release is to match the track list as-printed, whereas the artist on a Recording should be as close to the truth as possible (I guess), and those two things can be different.
Thanks for all the feedback and examples! Here’s the entirety of what I ended up with:
Remixes, mashups, and bootlegs
A recording that is a remix of another recording should typically be credited to the original recording’s artist, not to the remixer. The remixer may be credited instead if the tracklist explicitly credits the song to the remixer rather than to the original artist.
The artist who remixed the song should be linked via a remixer relationship. The remixed song’s title (including any parenthetical information like the remixer’s name) should be preserved.
A release that was created without any participation from the credited artist (e.g. a remix or mashup album that was created without the knowledge of the original artist(s)) should be credited to the artist who created and released it (the remix or mashup artist) instead of to the original artist.
Bootleg releases that just repackage the original artist’s work should be credited to the original artist and given the “bootleg” status.
The Remix, an official remix album released by Lady Gaga, is credited to the original artist, Lady Gaga.
Golden Eggs, an unlicensed bootleg album of The Yardbirds recordings, is credited to the original artist, The Yardbirds.
I decided to keep everything together in one place on the Artist Credits page. I agree that a dedicated page might make more sense going forward, so please feel free to move this text around or hack it up.
also wanted to add an example of one remix with different credits depending on who released it
the original track was released by General Mumble as a YouTube single. then The Living Tombstone remixed it and also likely put it up on YouTube. General Mumble then included it on an album “Songs About The Pink One (and others)”, crediting The Living Tombstone. less than a year later, The Living Tombstone releases “Tombstone Remixes”, and credits General Mumble, the original artist. perhaps it would be worth it to include this as an example?