I think the MB Style Guideline should be changed. Databases have their focus on collecting on a regulatory base. So if it does not change the intent of the song title (not the artist’s intention, whatever that may be) the title should follow the Language Specific Style.
Ok, so there’s no discussion about database standards because (in the KW case) there might be some obscure artistic intent and in Rosalias case, her label (not even herself) confirmed it?
i think it’s more important how this database wants to handle it’s data. and this should be uniform and in a sense of not falsifying song titles.
can you really justify capitalizing the kanye west album and not capitalizing every other physical album with caps written on the cover? i don’t think you can. and if you were in contact with rosalia representatives: what are the motives of capslocking it?
A lot of digital releases do this, particularly punk/hardcore releases. I’m never quite sure what to do.
I wonder if this is where that mythical multiple tracklistings element could help. After all, uniform data and reflecting an entity as perfectly as possible are both nice.
it was a bit provocative from my side. of course it does not matter. but also, it does not matter what they say anyways, reception of art is not bound to statements of the artist. i think this is important in understanding art.
i agree with aerozol, is there a feature (like a nightmode), that let’s you turn on/off the “artists intentional” capitalization. and is there an add-on for picard that does do this?
MusicBrainz is a database for objective information, not subjective interpretations. I believe it would be most appropriate if the release group adhered to style guidelines strictly, while each release can be depicted as however the majority of digital retailers inventory it. The same applied with respect towards recordings as well. Recordings being the standard to which the track is referring, just as the release group is to the release. This then segues into a standard guideline required for naming recordings, and best suited in another thread with it’s own set of caveats and disputes.
But that is exactly what MB is not doing here. I was always arguing in perspective of the database.
Why is it abandoning it’s style guidelines in the age of digital distribution?
All the capitalized letters on all the recordings in the last 100 years have been adjusted to our uniform database standard. But now it shifts. Why is that so?
I think you can not argue that you respect the guidelines while handling it digitally different than with physical copies. There are millions of releases that capitalize every trackletter on the physical artwork.
Here are examples of databases that seem to keep their style guidelines no matter what trends are going on in the www. Rosalia example:
They have not. There’s been plenty of capitalized letters left alone, when there’s reason to suspect the non-standard capitalization is artist intent. Be it all lowercase, all uppercase, or anything in between. This is exactly the same issue.
I think artistic intent has become way too expansive with this ALL CAPS fad and that we should allow some of these titles to follow the more traditional capitalization rules for the sake of consistency in cataloging of releases.
This might be an unpopular opinion but it is something that has bothering me for years. However I would like to see if the community would be willing to reconsider and perhaps modify how we handle these releases. Thanks!
just one artist’s perspective here, but if i ‘ALL CAPS’ or ‘no caps’ my releases, that’s how i want them presented. many websites will not honor this, but it’s my strong preference that as many do as possible. given how many other sources pull from musicbrainz i personally would think MB’s entries for such releases should be as close to what the artist/label wants as possible.
idk, take my opinion with a grain of salt, i’m just one guy who values capitalization way more than most people, haha. but i like our guidelines as they are, personally.
I personally think that however it is on the digital sites, is how the artist wants it. They or the label that represents them are the ones who upload it. Unless it’s inconsistent on official releases, of course. But if it’s consistently all lowercase or all uppercase, then that’s how I believe it should be on MB.
For decades record companies have had releases in all caps (vinyls, 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, etc) and I am sure in many cases it was intentional, however we had guidelines than when followed kept the catalogs looking more consistent. That consistency has gone out of the window now with what seems like every other new release following this fad. Even Wikipedia has remained more consistent with their release titles than us.
the reason we didn’t trust the all-caps on vinyl/CD is because all caps often looks better when doing artistic design. therefore it usually wasn’t a titling decision but a visual one. artists would tell you as much. if the artist directly said it was meant to be all caps, for as long as i’ve been aware, we’ve listened.
i don’t understand your point about consistency. what’s inconsistent about it? in my opinion “we call the albums what the artist says they are called” is the most consistent you can get.
I think for archival purposes (organizing a music collection, adding releases to a database, etc), having the English capitalization (or the language appropriate capitalization) for titles looks much more pleasing that having them in all caps. Having this mix of capitalizations has made the database look more and more messy as time has gone by in my personal opinion. If you are happy with the way it is, then I am glad for you. I don’t like how it makes the database look and I am just voicing my opinion.
That’s because that is a graphic designer choosing all caps on physical media. On digital, that’s not the case. Digital shows how the artist want the capitalization. I’m not talking about every first letter capitalized. I mean when it’s obvious by having a digital release in all caps or all lowercase. Yes, I think it’s a stupid trend or fad or whatever. But that’s irrelevant. It’s obvious to me this is artist intent when that’s the case.
It is part of presentation of the piece. The choice of music, the choice of title, the choice of presentation of the title. So much more in the artist’s hand. It is nice the database respects that.
You can change your own collection quite easily. Not everything should be made to conform to the rules. Personally I find the Japanese ALL CAPS thing far more jarring as they are over-riding artist intent on compilation albums.
I actually like it when I pull up a modern artist in my collection and see them messing with the rules of language. Music has always been about breaking rules.
