This album is bugging me a bit:
The album contains recordings all made when the three musicians mentioned on the cover (Nash the Slash, Cameron Hawkins, Martin Deller) were together in the band FM. Nash the Slash released this album (a collection of demos and live rarities) but to avoid problems by using the name FM (he was no longer in FM), he didn’t mention it and only mentioned the three musicians. The cover reads “Reel-to-Reel Obscurities from Nash the Slash, Cameron Hawkins & Martin Deller”, not really a band name either. The spine mentions “Slash/Hawkins/Deller”.
Now on MB, this release is under the three musicians, two of whom do not have any other solo releases. When looking for this album, I searched for FM, because everybody who has this album knows it’s FM.
I feel that in this case, the artist should be FM, with an alias of the three separate names. The album will then show up where people expect to find this album, and still show the credited artists name as on the cover.
Do others agree in this case? Should I change it?
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Agree. Artist FM with disambiguation and aliases with the names.
But the release was not released as an FM release.
I think each release should get the proper correct artist credit as printed on each edition, with no funny stuff. 
Maybe you can put FM as the release group artist?
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There’s different ways of looking at it. It’s songs and recordings by the band, most if not all would file and expect this to be filed under FM. That the name is not on the cover has a reason (to avoid conflicts) but it still is an FM release.
I think purpose, intent, and expectation should be taken into account. In this case, to me, filing under FM makes most sense, and then using the disambiguation / aliases to state the names on the cover.
I think that’s why MB have that option. If an artist is using an alias, the real artist is linked to in the MB database, and their pseudonym is in the alias.
Realising that last bit makes me certain that this should go under FM with the proper alias. 
The intent is clearly to not be an FM release. The names on the cover are not FM. They legally avoided calling themselves FM. This is not what an Alias is for.
I think that is a neat solution. Albums appear under FM, but also the correct artists are credited as per the actual covers.
1 Like
Like for the FM Release group, it means the MB recordings should be credited to FM, as well.
But the MB tracks should be credited to the printed artists, like the MB release.
If it was published without mention of the name “FM,” I think MB should respect that. At most, I would mention “FM” in an annotation, as has been done. I don’t even think the RG should be under FM. On the recordings, maybe.
2 Likes
I agree that since this was made with intention to not be an FM release, it should not be credited as such.
I think an argument could be made for making a single artist with the names – compare with for example Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe – this is basically “Yes, but not Yes” .
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