Is there a Guideline for Bollywood Releases?

MusicBrainz Style
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Is there a Guide for Bollywood Releases?

Bollywood Releases are different than western releases and therefore need a different guideline.

I am looking to find answers to the following points.

Release artist?

Case of multiple artists?

It is typical of the release to credit Composer for the Release and works fine logically when the composer is same for all the tracks. But when there are multiple composers for the release, it is not clear how to credit the release artist.

The release usually credits all the composers even though not common for all tracks, is that the way to go?

Guideline says to credit the release artist to Various Artists when there are multiple artists, but that is not the case here as it is not a compilation.

Personal opinion: I think it is better to credit all the composers for the release as it is the most common way to credit the release artist for Bollywood releases and it appears on their discography.

Case of lyricist?

Some releases credit lyricist for the release and some don’t.

is there a guideline for this or are both acceptable and just a matter of preference? what is the best practice?

Personal opinion: I think it is better to credit the lyricist for the release even if not appearing on the release. I am not sure about the director of the movie though, because many of the releases credit the director as well on physical media. And the director is also involved in the making of the music, in giving the vision to the composer.

Release title?

Case of Original Soundtrack?

platforms like Spotify and Apple Music use Original Soundtrack as the release subtitle for Bollywood releases but platforms like JioSaavn don’t. This was for digital releases, but for physical releases, while most physical releases don’t have Original Soundtrack as the release subtitle, some do.

How should this be handled? Should it be added as a release subtitle or left it as a metadata for RG and skipped from the release title?

Personal opinion: I think it is better to leave it as a metadata for RG and skip it from the release title as well since it just creates clutter and is not necessarily doing the work of a subtitle (i.e. adding distinguishing information about the release).

Not the same but a similar guideline I found was about the primary type, like remove “EP” from the title if it is not for distinguishing the release.

Artist credits for tracks?

Case of composer?

There is inconsistency in the way composers are credited for the tracks. Some releases credit composer in tracks and some just include the vocalist. Some release credits both.

What is the best practice here? the most common way is to only credit the vocalist but that is not the case for all releases.

Personal opinion: I think it is better to credit both the vocalist and the composer for the track, with the initial position being given to the composer as that is the most common way the track would appear on other compilations. But only crediting the vocalist is also fine as it is the most common way to credit the track.

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Bumping this thread as I have added question marks all over the place because I felt this post, on an initial glance, might come across as I was posting a guideline instead of asking for a discussion over it. I hope that is the case because otherwise generating no discussion around this would be a bummer.

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I don’t believe there are any guidelines yet, but I believe anyone could write guidelines which would be subject to the approval from our style lead, reosarevok.

that said, we do have guidelines for soundtracks in general which might help, either for standardizing or writing new guidelines: Style / Specific types of releases / Soundtrack - MusicBrainz

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There is a guideline, it’s universal. It is found in the documentation. There’s no exclusivity, because releases are different all over the world, not just bollywood and western. If bollywood would be given it’s own guideline, soon enough each country will have their own guideline which will add more mess to musicbrainz than it already has. Have you read the forum lately? The differences on opinions on how things should be tagged, and that is with a unified guideline, what more with what you are suggesting.

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And, BTW, everything you have suggested is possible. You just have to tinker around a bit.
With regards to how artists are credited, it will always follow the source. If Apple credits director, then the director should be credited. If you wanted how credits on the cd works, then you can just create the release for the CD, since it’s different from the digital release. Your physical media release will have credits the way you want it since you will be following the bollywood format. Just don’t forget to upload a scanned copy of the cover, back, credits or booklet of the physical media so that when somebody change how you do it there you can always cite with it why it was done that way.