How do I get MusicBrainz Picard to provide the original release date of reissued albums?

MusicBrainz Picard
1

Hello,

I am trying to tag my music collection alphabetically by artist/group, and then the albums per artist/group chronological by release date e.g.

30drop
2017 - The Time Of Cruel Miracles
2023 - Music For Empty Rooms With Bloody Windows
2024 - Abstract Dynamics

A Hawk and a Hacksaw
2009 - Délivrance
2011 - Cervantine
2013 - You Have Already Gone To The Other World

This works well for albums that have never been reissued, remastered, or issued in Deluxe Editions/Super Deluxe Editions/[any other edition]. For the reissued releases/editions, MusicBrainz will tag them with the reissued date, not the original date. How can I get MusicBrainz to provide the original release date by default?

Before using MusicBrainz, I used other software that allowed me to do this (see image attached). I moved to MusicBrainz because I found its tagging more reliable.

So, it’s not an issue with the creation of the tags, it’s when MusicBrainz scans my files and allocates the metadata. At that point it allocates the reissued dates. I would like it to provide the original date of release.

An example of al album with the “wrong” release date is:
A Certain Ratio
2014 - Sextet

This album was originally released in 1982, but reissued many times through the years. I have a version that was released in 2014, but want MusicBrainz to tag it as released in 1982.

Thank you.

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2

Have a look at the originaldate and originalyear tags in the documentation. I think that will do what you’re after.

2 Likes
3

Thank you for your reply. I looked at the documentation, found the section, but do not know how to apply it correctly. I used the script as mentioned in the documentation, but it is not making any difference at all.

The script I have is $set(originaldate,%_recording_firstreleasedate%), though I actually want originalyear. I tried the same script but replaced originaldate with originalyear, but it didn’t make a difference either.

How can I fix this?

Edit: Since I am very new at this and have no knowledge of these things, I am still getting my head around the difference between scripts for file renaming tags, and tagger scripts. I think what I am asking has to do with a tagger script. I want MusicBrainz to scan my files, identify the original year of release (especially for reissued albums), and then, when I tag the files, save the album with its original year of release.

So, the file naming script I am using at the moment (which works in terms of formatting and style) is:

$if2(%albumartist%,%artist%)/

$if($and($if2(%albumartist%,%artist%),$year(%originaldate%)),$year(%date%) - %album%/,)

$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,9),Disc $num(%disknumber%,2)/,Disc $num(%discnumber%,1)/),)

$if($and(%albumartist%,%tracknumber%),$num(%tracknumber%,2),) - %artist% - %title%$noop( New Script )

The above file naming script renames and moves the files into this order (as an example):
Aix Em Klemm [folder with the name of the artist]
2000 - Aix Em Klemm [subfolder with the year of release and the album title]

What I need is a tagger script (I think) that will get MusicBrainz to use the original year of release for reissued albums so that when I use the above file naming script, the albums appear in the right chronological order.

4

By default Picard stores the actual release date of the release and the original release date of the release group (e.g. the album) as separate tags. The actual release date goes into date, and for the original release date there are originaldate (this one is the primary tag being stored in the metadata files) and the additional originalyear (contains only the year).

If a player properly supports this it can hence make use of both dates, like this example from Navidrome:

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If you want to replace the date tag with the original year use a tagger script like:

$set(date,$if2(%originalyear%,%date%))

or

$set(date,$year($if2(%originaldate%,%date%)))

See also the examples at Scripts — MusicBrainz Picard v3.0 documentation . The $if2 ensures it falls back to the standard date tag in case the original date is not available.

That script is using the first release date of each recording. That also means each file can have a different date. If you want a consistent date for all files of an album don’t use _recording_firstreleasedate.

1 Like
5

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it immensely. What is the difference between the two scripts above i.e what is the end result or do they produce the same result?

If you want a consistent date for all files of an album don’t use _recording_firstreleasedate

I read about this in the documentation and do not like this at all. I would prfer not to use it for the exact reason you stated.

6

I forgot to mention that this is not so much about how the files appear in my player, but how I organise them on my hard drive. I really like albums to appear in the right chronological order in which they were released, but this can’t happen if MusicBrainz adds the reissue date to the tag and not the original year of release. I am not interested in the full date of original release, just the year.

7

The end result should be the same, if you don’t change the values of those tags otherwise. %originalyear% holds already only the year, %originaldate% the full date, if available. $year() extracts the year from a date.

8

Thank you, I am using $set(date,$if2(%originalyear%,%date%)) and it seems to be working fine. Now I can finally start tagging in all seriousness.

1 Like