How to handle localized track lists?

MusicBrainz Style
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1

CATCH PING : Fairies of Emotion (Original Soundtrack) has two sets of track titles: English, and Korean. The English titles show up for everywhere except Korea. They both have the same barcode. Should this release be added:

  • As one release, prioritizing Korean titles (since it’s the original language)
  • As one release, prioritizing English titles (since it’s the more widespread language)
  • As two seperate releases, even though they have the same barcode

I tried looking through the documentation/forums but couldn’t find anything clear on what to do here.

2

Pseudo-release should be used for translations or transliterations that do not appear on an actual release (even if they appear on an official site). Pseudo-releases should be linked to the original tracklist using the transl(iter)ation relationship where possible. Not all translations and transliterations are pseudo-releases.

If the release has tracks listed in multiple languages, the entry with both languages included is considered to be the official release. Entries with only one of the languages on the cover should be set to pseudo-release.

See also:

3 Likes
3

So the english release counts as a pseudo-release? Even though it’s officially available on digital stores?

4

I would say so, especially if the language used in the lyrics/recordings is Korean.

I do not know Korean, and I’m just relying on Google translate, but the translittered Korean/Latin gives a feeling the original title could be in English (kaechitiniping opeuning-gog).

1 Like
5

Alright, I’ve added it here.

6

What I would suggest and would like to see used more often is adding the translated titles as aliases to the album and recordings, with the proper locale set. I think especially with such cases where the artists already make their release available in different scripts to attract a wider audience. Neither the artists nor the streaming services see these as separate releases, rather alternative ways to present the track list

Something I think fits the alias approach well, much better than duplicating the entire release as a pseudo-release. I think this always was an ugly solution, originally done die to the lack of an alternative.

Picard 3 will support translating releases this way. With this approach people can actually choose whether they prefer e.g. Korean or English track listings.

3 Likes
7

That’s actually a really clean way of doing it, I didn’t think about using aliases. The one issue I see is, AFAIK, there’s no way to set aliases for track names, only recordings. So setting an alias wouldn’t do much regarding transliterated track titles.

8

Why not? The transliterated titles usually work across releades

9

Doesn’t Picard pull from track titles, not recording titles? Or is Picard 3 going to support using recording titles with the localization system?

10

For translation it will use recording aliases.

11

Adding to recordings is too many and feels endless and not useful to me, so I add work aliases, instead..
Recordings should take advantage from the linked work aliases, instead.
Work list is smaller than all recording versions (original, covers, remixes, lives).

(But I don’t tag alternate titles, myself)

12

There is no way around pseudo-releases and later alternative tracklists because track titles and recording (or work) titles don’t necessarily match.

It’s also needed to preserve the exact artist credit phrase.

3 Likes
13

Are you meaning to say it’s too much work adding them? In that case check out this script by @YoGo

14

I also mean that adding the same aliases to each new recording of a work sounds like bad design.

15

Seems like when alternate track lists are eventually added, that’ll be the best way to do it + release alias.