Resurrecting this thread since this is still coming up (and not just for singles):
Hip-hop artists often release instrumental versions of their albums (not to be confused with instrumental hip-hop albums). Here are some examples:
- 2001: Instrumentals (instrumental version of 2001)
- El-P Presents: CANNIBAL OXtrumentals (instrumental version of The Cold Vein)
- Skelethon (instrumental version) (instrumental version of Skelethon)
- Spirit World Field Guide Instrumentals (instrumental version of Spirit World Field Guide)
- God Loves Ugly Instrumentals (instrumental version of God Loves Ugly)
- The STS Instrumentals (instrumental version of STS x RJD2)
In most of the cases that I’ve seen, MB editors have placed the instrumental releases in the same release groups as the original “vocals” releases. I created edit #100144696 to merge an instrumental release group to follow this pattern, but most some of the editors in the resulting conversation think that instrumental versions belong in their own release groups.
I think I agree with this too. If I only had the instrumental version of a hip-hop album, I wouldn’t view it as being “essentially the same” as the original album, which is a test that I’ve sometimes seen used to determine whether two releases belong in the same release group.
Are there any reasons why instrumental versions of albums shouldn’t usually (always?) get their own release groups? The only one I could think of is that it clutters the album list on the artist page, but @Antiguastrea’s suggestion of setting the “remix” secondary type seems like it could avoid this.
@reosarevok, any guidance here? If creating new release groups seems reasonable, I’d like to add a new item to the “What should not be grouped together?” list at Style / Release Group - MusicBrainz to settle the issue.