As far as I’ve understood, the Dutch magazine Avrotros gives to their subscribers releases by young Dutch classical musicians, kind of as a way to introduce them to the world (usually the first ever recordings by the artists in question, as far as I can tell). I’ve collected them under this series:
While these are “releases included with a magazine” and as such fit under our definition of promotional, is it not very weird to have fully legitimate albums of new recordings marked as “unofficial release groups” and hidden from the artists’ pages? I’m not sure if we should have a different understanding of what “promotional” is nowadays (after all, were these to just be put up on Bandcamp for free download, they’d be “official”), or whether we should not hide promo release groups, or both, but I’d like to know if I’m the only one who feels the current situation is awkward.
I think we shouldn’t hide promotional release groups. You are not the only one noticing this. I’ve seen edits recently changing official to promotional solely because they were free downloads on Bandcamp instead of paid downloads.
‘Promotional’ has always been a widely interpreted setting tbh.
Personally I only use it if the artist/label intent is that it wouldn’t be a ‘proper’ release - e.g. a taster of an upcoming release, or very limited availability for promotional purposes.
Otherwise, regardless of if it’s bundled with something, I just mark it as official…
edit: We really need that checkbox at the top of the page to show/hide promo rg’s etc