I just bought the anniversary edition of Read My Lips, pictured and linked below. It’s a reissue with some additional bits. The tracks from the original appear with (to my ear) their original mixes. But between some tracks are little interview interludes — just a few sentences each, maybe 10 or 15 seconds. They don’t overlap the music and are cut as tracks in the vinyl, so one can see where they are and aim for, or avoid, them. They are not mentioned at all on the packaging.
Cutting these separately into the track listing means that it wouldn’t match what’s printed anywhere on the packaging (only the track names appear on labels or sleeves). But folding them into an adjacent track changes the timing and makes it Not the Same Recording even though (I believe) it ought to be.
I assume this has happened before? What is the right way through?
Do you mean there are no numbers next to the track names? That would make it simpler to include the interludes as separate tracks, since you could just use standard numbering and include the interludes in that numbering.
If the track numbers are printed and sequential, I might lean more towards merging the interludes into an adjacent track.
Oh, actually, I misspoke. There are in fact numbers, at least in some places, with the numbering as one would expect (and as is already on the track listing). So then the spoken bits would have to be folded into an adjacent track (this is generally clear, based on what’s being talked about). Which then returns these tracks to being unique recordings, which gives me heartburn, but there seems no other way.
I mean, I guess you could use track numbers like A1.0 for the intro dialog to track A1, but that seems strange to me. I’d lean towards separate recordings (either with clear names like “[interview] / Track Title” or with clear disambiguation fields) and a tracklist that matches what’s printed, but I’m no expert on this.
Usually when I have seen something like this, the spoken bits are added as separate tracks. As you can visually see. In that case you would still have the original recordings, with extra tracks added for the spoken bit. This does mean the numbering goes out of sync.
Maybe with the track numbers you could have A1, A2, A2a, A3, A4a, etc. Some way of showing the extra tacks but keep the original numbers.
If there was a CD of this I’d look as to how they had split it. But as this is a RSD vinyl I guess this is the only medium. So I believe it is safe to make the track list as you hear it - original recordings with some extra tracks added. You are especially able to be more flexible with how you credit vinyl as there is no TOC forcing the track splits.
This looks similar to what’s on the style guide for Special purpose track title . Since there are track numbers printed on the medium I don’t feel like I can renumber them, and any kind of 1a / 1.1 strategy feels even less appealing to me than carrying one-off recordings (which is already very unappealing, especially when these loose recordings will sort far away from the canonical recording because of the [untitled] or [interview] prefix).
I don’t expect to hear of a CD of this, to @IvanDobsky ‘s point, so I can only make a guess with what I have. I’ll think a bit and see if there are more opinions. I’m in no hurry now as it’s a lot of work for a result I’m guaranteed not to like
