Handling unit names made from two artists names

We have an ongoing discusion with @UltimateRiff about handling certain unit names that are made from the mash-up of two artists names as seen here and a few more edits from the same release

How should we handle this collaborative units? As of today, this was the only instance the unit was credited, AFAIK, but since it was listed as SorAz everywhere, I created the unit as a group and linked the performers as members, but the current edits approach isn’t that bad either.

My opinion is to have it as a unit, even though it only has a single release [and probably will never get another one], but @UltimateRiff is right that then it’s not as easy to reach it from the individual artist’s pages.

Which gets me to the second point of the topic, relationships like “Member of [group]” should be more prominent in an artist overview page IMO

What’s the general thought about these issues?

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Just wanted to add, this type of artist credit seems fairly common in Japanese music, see also ゆいあず (YuiAzu, two characters from the anime “K-ON!”, Yui and Azusa) and the release さしみお, featuring スバおか (SubaOka, or Oozora Subaru and Nekomata Okayu, also mentioned in one of the edits above).

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With a one-off collaboration like SorAz seems to be, I would go with @UltimateRiff’s approach. The “mashup” name doesn’t seem that different to me from something like Eno/Cale or other stylized collaboration names.

Yes, this seem to be the general idea, I found AA-CHINO also stylized like that.

There was a similar discussion a few months ago, about a collaboration between Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. In that case, the consensus was to keep them split with a join phrase.

But there are a couple of differences in this case. The first is, by mashing up their names, they have essentially created a unique name for the duo. The How to Split Artists page has this: “…if the collaboration has its own name - for example, Band Aid - instead of being based on the collaborator’s names it should not be split, as there is no simple way to do so.” Because of this, I would be inclined to go with the single SorAZ artist.

The second difference I noticed: the two “collaborators,” ときのそら and AZKi, are not persons, but characters. Should they be treated the same as persons?

I would actually be inclined to say this is more reason to split them. SorAZ is actually based on the collaborators’ names, Tokino Sora (ときのそら in Latin script/romanji) and AZKi

In this case (and in most cases for characters), I personally believe so. They’re both virtual YouTubers, i.e. actual people essentially playing virtual characters live on stream and whatnot, with the character (almost always) being directly controlled by the person. They’re probably about as person-y as a character can get. :grin:

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For me this is the crux of it:
Was the ‘group’ distinctive enough that someone would come to MB looking for a group called ‘SorAz’? (new MB artist)
Or is it a stylized way to credit ‘Sor…’ & ‘Az…’? (credit existing MB artists)

The ‘does the collab have it’s own website/channels’ approach isn’t perfect but a good step towards assessing that question.

Just based on the posts I probably wouldn’t make a new artist for this - not sure what value is added with that if it’s a one-off collab?

:tada::100::tada:

This ticket is actually quite cool (add a display (tab?) to artist pages where it displays their releases + any releases of groups they were in):

Wow I gotta look into this!

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Answering in order:
No
Yes
No

So it seems like my initial approach was mistaken, I just copied what I saw in vendors where the unit was credited alongside the individual artists. But we have enough experience with vendors data being inaccurate to say the least.

I already changed my vote from abstain to Yes for this release. Should we also remove the unit artist from the database? I think we should.

Yes! I love this idea! Sometimes it surprises me how long stuff has been waiting in line.
Maybe one day I’ll have enough skills to solve them myself, hopefully

A word of caution, it’s a one way street. Once you fall down the rabbit hole, you fall hard

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Based on, sure, but it isn’t “Tokino Sora & AZKi.” They created a new name.

Would you split ABBA (Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid)?

If ABBA was a one-off collaboration of four established artists…I probably would.

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I suppose that’s fair enough. :slight_smile:

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