I am trying to find out if series are the right way to go for Nektar - Recycled.
Side A has always been played in full, always called Recycled by the band, by fans, appears like that on setlists, and on a live DVD (https://musicbrainz.org/release/35a3fd19-8e21-4c3b-be75-91b1db128977). Side B has been played like that one tour, but parts B3 and B4 have been played separately as well.
Nobody ever uses the separate track titles. They were added by the record label, probably to give more chance to radio airplay. I assume this was the same reason as why Tarkus was mentioned as separate tracks on the cover and label.
So now the series are possible, like on Tarkus, I was wondering how to add a series for Recycled. In this particular case I would add “Recycled, Part 1” and “Recycled, Part 2” as two series, one for each original LP side.
Would that be the right way to go for this album?
I’ve not been able to find the documentation on how to add something as a Series.
Any help is much appreciated.
The “how” is easy - just look up top at the Editing menu and “add series” is listed on there.
Give it a name, and set the Type to “Recording series” and you are almost done. Now just add the Recordings to the series using “Add Relationship” and set any order you need to.
The neat thing with a Series is you can just create one as an experiment. Fill the annotation with details as to what it is about the series that is important.
I’ve always seen series as a way of making relationships where there isn’t an obvious link. I’ve used them for things like concert releases and related re-issues.
Do watch out - the GUI is a little buggy sometimes during editing. If you add a list of recordings, and then reorder that list, don’t panic if things vanish from the screen as a known bug does sometimes fail to show the first item in the list. But it is there when you hit save and look at the result.
I see what you mean about the lack of documentation: https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Series That looks like a forgotten placeholder and it doesn’t explain anything.
Aha, thanks for that! I’ve been reading it wrong then. The Tarkus page mentions “part of” and I only found that in relation to a series.
So in this particular case of Nektar - Recycled, “Recycled” (or “Recycled, Part 1” and “Recycled, Part 2”) need to be added as a work. Is this correct?
I have added works for all the parts on the album and linked them. The parts are related as movements to the song. The information looks OK to me, all correct and when I compare to Tarkus it looks right.
Does it look alright this way? Please let me know if I have to change anything. If this is OK, I will add Part 2 and do the same for another Nektar album which has the same story.