Is it appropriate to copy artists from release to records?

MusicBrainz Classical
1

Sometimes a release have relationship with artists, but records do not have such relationship. Example where artists are associated with a release, but are not associated with records: b7e1bb59-09a7-44eb-af1f-51b78fa0d831

I suppose the Right Thing is to:
(1) Copy artist relationships from release to records.
(2) Change the records’ “Artist” property to copied artists instead of a composer, as recommended by classical style guide.

Could you please confirm if my understanding is correct.

If yes: I am aware of the script which automates (2), but is there any script which automates (1)?

2

The only reason the relationships should stay on the release level is if you don’t know which tracks they performed on. For example, on this release I set the organist at the release level, because I know he does not perform in all tracks, but I’m not sure on which ones he does perform (I don’t have the release itself to check). I set the choir and conductor on all tracks, because I do know they’re all tracks for choir.

There’s no script to automate (1), because as you can see it’s a case by case decision. That said, if they do perform in every track, you can just remove the release level relationships on the relationship editor, and at the same time select all recordings and batch-add the relationships in one go :slight_smile:

2 Likes
3

Thank you, I will use your advice.

A bit different, but related case: what to do with the record’s “Artist” property when performers are not known? I do not have the CD, and the person who originally entered the information provided just track names, but that’s all. According to the style guide, the record artist should normally reference the performer, but currently record artist references a composer. What to do?

(1) Let composer stay as the record artist (ignore violation of the style guide)
(2) Use [unknown] artist for the track.

A variation on the above from your example: performers are known for the whole release, but it is not known which performer contributed to which record, so we can’t properly set performer / record relationship. How to set the record artist in such case?