Context: Disney frequently releases soundtracks in multiple languages. Should these all be placed under a single release group, or should there be a release group per language?
For example, Release group “The Princess and the Frog” by Randy Newman - MusicBrainz currently contains English, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese releases of the Princess and the Frog, but there are separate release groups for German, Italian, French and Spanish. Should I merge the latter into the former, or should I turn the Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese releases into their own groups?
If the packaging is in a different language, but the music/vocals are the same, then they are in the same release group.
If the music/vocals are in different languages, regardless of packaging, each gets a new release group.
Those Disney soundtracks you’ve linked seem to be correct, though it looks confusing. Perhaps it would be a good example to add to the Release group guidelines. I’ll draft something up.
Randy Newman’s “Küss den Frosch” (German lyrics) has a separate release group to the English lyric version, because the music itself is different, with different vocals and vocalists.
The Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese releases are supersets of the English original, with the localised tracks added at the end, while the French/Spanish/German/Italian versions mostly replace the English tracks - does this make a difference? If not I’ll move the Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese releases into their own groups.
Style / Release Group - MusicBrainz covers this somewhat, actually - I interpret this as it being better to err on the side of more release groups, not fewer.
I can see the argument for having separate release groups, but some extra layer (‘group of release groups’) would be nice to have to link these translations together. It’s a bit odd to have 5 separate entries under https://beta.musicbrainz.org/artist/da7bb7d8-557d-4635-9ca1-e6e985525bd5 for what is essentially the same thing. For Toy Story 4 there are at least 10 different language versions. Aladdin (2019) has at least 13.
Where the localised tracks are ‘bonus tracks’ it should be part of the same group, was always my understanding.
I can see why it would make sense for everything to be grouped, from a display perspective, but MusicBrainz usually doesn’t group albums that don’t actually contain the same recordings, which also makes sense.
I didn’t realise it was in the “not 100% sure” part of the guidelines… I guess I’ve seen it be applied pretty consistently.
I don’t edit Disney soundtracks but because I often edit audiobooks, where different languages (and narrators!) are also usually separate release groups, I am quite used to seeing artists with a variety of release groups for the same “story”. It can certainly look messy, though.
Thanks for the tip about series - have used that just now for some singles released for the TV show Castle Rock.
I noticed there was a ‘translated version’ relationship to the Spanish release group already and this is exactly what I want. I’ve added this relationship to the German, Italian and French release groups.
I’ll leave the Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese releases where they are (under the English/base release group) because the localised tracks are added at the end.