I would like to contribute to MB mostly by fleshing out the Roxette/Per Gessle/Marie Fredriksson/etc releases since that’s what I collect, but since I started in earnest a short while ago some of my edits were reverted by an auto-editor.
I don’t have a problem with this system of checks, but would like to try and clear some things up before I continue.
The main thing I need to clear up is naming/tagging of demo tracks since that’s what most of the reversions were about. These are things Per Gessle is fond of releasing as B-sides and there’s even been a 11 disc box set consisting solely of demos. So, it’s a fairly big part of the Roxette/PG oeuvre.
These tracks have various naming standards on the releases, such as:
- Silver Blue (Demo Version)
- One Is Such a Lonely Number (Demo/September '87)
- Come Back (Before You Leave) (Demo April 1990)
- Sleeping in My Car [The Stockholm Demo Version]
- CD: Run to You [Demo Version] / Inlay: Run to You [Demo December '92]
- CD: The Rain (Demo '91) / Inlay: The Rain (Demo, December 29 '91)
- CD: I’m Sorry (Demo) / Inlay: I’m Sorry (demo August 18, '93)
- Wish I Could Fly (demo, Nov. 1997)
- Anyone (Tits & Ass Demo, July 29th 1998)
- 7Twenty7 (Tits & Ass demo)
- Milk and Toast and Honey (Tits & Ass demo, August 2 & 3 1999)
- Sleeping in My Car (The Stockholm Demo Version 1993)
- Waiting for the Rain (Studio Vinden demo 1997)
- Beautiful Boy (Studio Vinden demo - March 2000)
- Hotblooded (T&A Demo - December 13, 1990)
- Hotblooded (T&A demo - jan 23, 1990)
- The Rain (T&A Demo - Dec 29, 1991)
These are listed in chronological order of their parent releases, so as you can see there’s no consistency whatsoever. In some cases where no date is in the name itself, the date is however mentioned in the credits.
I have some questions with regard to these officially released demos:
- Should the track name in the track lists (many of these demos appear on multiple different releases) reflect the format used for that specific release OR can they be named in one consistent manner across all releases?
- If they should follow the format of the release, what should be done when the name differs between the CD and the inlay? Use the version with the most detail?
- If the track name should be exactly as on the release, can the recording name deviate from these track names to something similar to how live recordings are presented in the guidelines? So, where we have the recording location and date(s) they are entered in the relationships, a disambiguation is added “demo, 1991-12-29: Tits & Ass, Halmstad, Sweden” and the name would then simply be “The Rain (demo)”. The disambiguations would follow the same format as form live recordings since there are often multiple demos of the same song - sometimes only “demo”, other times the full details.
There are many gaps I’d like to fill and correct existing data where I can, but I’d prefer to do it right the first time for new entries and correctly for existing entries.
Any guidance on this would be appreciated.
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It doesn’t depend on the format, but different releases can use different titles. Except for obvious misspellings, these should be used as track titles. The recording title should be “the most common title from official tracks” (Style / Recording - MusicBrainz)
Actually I’m not sure about this. According to Guidelines, “extra title information should be kept in the recording title”. However, demo information sometimes appears as disambiguation text, just like live recordings.
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welcome to the party, Barrymeiny~
I’ve done something kinda similar with Five Iron Frenzy, if you wanna take a peek.
typically I’ll just use whatever’s on the back cover for track titles, but if there’s tracks not in that list, you can use what’s in the booklet or on the medium.
for recordings, I don’t really have a standard, but with FIF I’ve generally moved (demo) and (live) from the recording title to the disambiguation.
a couple examples of how I’ve handled demos below. I haven’t standardized the disambiguations, but that’s probably a good idea~
also an unreleased demo that was mentioned on a later release:
in terms of what I’d put in the disambiguation, you’d probably be fine to leave it at (demo 1991-12-29), but the more detail doesn’t hurt~
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There is more to this than meets the eye.
This editor intentionally contradicted his own sources when adding the release in question. I later corrected this, using data from two of the sources he used, amalgamated via a-tisket.
I tried to explain that defying official sources like this is not OK, and here we are.
I do understand that there is a lack of consensus for recording titles, but I have a sneaking suspicion that @barrymieny is attempting to use this as a wedge issue.
@HibiscusKazeneko As I tried to explain in my message sent to you through your profile, I am new at this and am trying to learn how to do this the right way. I should have spent more time going through the style guides and documentation to understand what the correct naming standards are. It really was an honest mistake, which is why I cancelled all the edits that contradicted what you explained. If my response in the edit to your comment was misinterpreted, I apologise, but I didn’t mean anything malicious by it. As an aside, I contacted you through your profile since I didn’t know which other avenue to use to question a change to an edit by another editor.
I started this thread as a way of trying to find out what to do in cases where there’s been multiple different ways that the track naming was done over the last 37 years with Roxette and related releases - as you can see from the shortlist I compiled above. ernstix pointed me to the relevant sections in the documentation that explains what to do for track names - which is to use what’s on the media (apart from fixing spelling mistakes, etc).
I’m not trying to make an issue out of this. I really only tried to find out what the correct way is, and if there were any unwritten conventions I was not aware of.
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Yeah, it’s been an ongoing issue for years. I’ve witnessed similar issues with artists I’ve worked on. I’ve even seen tracks whose punctuation or spelling vary between releases.
In the past I’ve used whatever the title or ETI was on the first release as the recording title. I thought that was what the guideline said to do, but it was either never there in the first place or it has since been lost or expunged.