How to mark album "outtakes" / "early recordings" releases?

MusicBrainz Style
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Sometimes an artist put out a release consisting of demo versions of songs from a specific previously released album, as well as songs that were part of an early draft of that album, but didn’t make the cut. How can we mark this in MusicBrainz?

Arguably such releases may not really be “real albums” so it might be strange to mark them as albums outright. (As in, it’s difficult to view the outtakes of an album as being a meaningfully full album in the discography of the artist)

I imagine two high-level possibilities:

  1. the outtakes album gets added to the same RG as the original, but gets marked as some Release type other than “Official”.
  2. The outtakes album should be in a separate RG, with either:
    1. an RG secondary type marking this
    2. An RG-RG relation showing that the outtakes album is an outtake of the original album
      • (this would make these similar to how we can mark re-recorded albums)

Here are some examples of such releases:

Yoni Bloch released “early recordings” releases for each of his first three albums:

which has early recordings of

which has early recordings of:

which has early recordings of:

which has out-takes of

which has out-takes of

which has out-takes of

which are songs that didn’t make it onto

What do you all think? Thank you!

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I don’t have any difficulty considering them “real albums,” and separate albums that should be in separate RGs.

Regarding the “early recordings” releases: The original release and the “Early Recordings” release are, as the title suggests, not the same recordings. They are unique recordings of the same works, performed by the same artist. The release titles are the same, with one having an additional phrase (which may be a subtitle):

(translated)
Maybe It’s Me
Maybe It’s Me - Early Recordings

I see this no differently than Taylor Swift re-recording her early albums as “Taylor’s Version” releases. They’re the same songs, but new recordings, and the release titles clearly tie them to the originals.

Regarding the “outtakes” release: I think it’s even more clear that this is a real album and belongs in its own RG. In some cases, they aren’t even the same works.

In all cases, the release title, and the links between the recordings and the works (for the early recordings), are enough to make it clear that the releases have a connection. I don’t see a need for a new Type. You can add something to the Annotations if you want, but I can’t think of anything you could say that wouldn’t be redundant.

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A demo is a demo. A different album, but marked as a demo. And an album for sure. Nearly always the same work, unless a large reworking of the piece happened. (And then the works get linked)

I have many albums like this. Some even released by the artist. “limited circulation” sounds a daft idea… some demos get huge bootleg or even official releases. Demo is demo. Demo is how our music is formed.

NOT the same RG as the original album.

Annotations are good to add to releases like this.

Also what @Beckfield says.

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While clearly “demo” has a bit of a precise definition, I wouldn’t be opposed to using it in a broader sense, including:

  • Actual demo recordings (which are not as limited or obscure as the guide indicates, as many artists publish albums of demos, or include demo recordings on “super deluxe” style releases.
  • Outtakes
  • Rough mixes
  • Early recordings
  • Unused takes
  • Rehearsals
  • False starts
  • Guide vocals

And probably more. There’s an overriding sense of “here’s a recording of a track that’s not a finished product” (or a collection of such tracks) and while “demo” is probably not the correct term, it’s the best we have for now.

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