Not a group, but preferably not "Various Artists" - new Artist type?!

MusicBrainz Style
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Here’s the issue, to put it simply: when uploading compilations made by various artists within a defined and recurring group, which one would this release go to?

There’s two ideas here.

The first: a release of this kind should go to the special purpose Various Artists, because it has, well, various artists. It’s a compilation with a ton of artists who all contributed equally.

The second: there are certain literal groups that aren’t bands that create these kinds of compilations. These same groups may reoccur two, three, five times. And that’s why we shouldn’t use Various Artists. If we use a new “artist”, we can make relationships between that “artist” and its members, which are the recurring musicians who tend to make tracks for these compilations.

These groups shouldn’t be considered, in the MusicBrainz sense, “groups.” The submission page for artists says you can consider something a “group” in the MusicBrainz sense when the artists perform together, but this happens very little on these compilations with a bunch of one artist tracks.

So my idea is to create a new artist type called the “collective.” A collective is not a “group” because members don’t generally all come together to make each song like a band might. It’s not a “person” either. It’s not Various Artists because we would like to link the members of this collective to some entity. Instead, it holds relationships to a bunch of artists who each regularly contribute to releases, but often individually with the occasional collaboration between a couple members. In either case, no track is ever under the name of the collective itself, only the artists who made the track.

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This is all very abstract. Do you have some concrete examples?

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While trying to make sense of a solution, I recommend making a series to link the releases. That starts helping make it clearer as to the links.

Some examples releases would be good to link in a post.

I certainly know of Folk Collective’s that exist that have releases like this. I’ll see if I can track some examples down. Or songs from a musical or stage show which are VA but released with the show as the Release Artist.

These examples usually have something on the cover that is used at that combined artist name

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The compilation that gave me this idea happened to be this one Release “SSCC Volume 5: Brief Glimpses of Quicksilver Dreams; or, Slush in a Rush” by Slushwave Social Club - MusicBrainz

It’s hard to tell whether this should be Various Artists or its own new “artist” since we have plenty of recurring artists that would fit nicely within “member of / has member” relationships, yet this is still a compilation with Various Artists.

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The compilation in question has a “series.” But there is no such relationship for recurring “artists” in a “series” because this wouldn’t really make sense.

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I believe doujin circles might be a similar concept to this

I feel like a series could work in some cases, but not all

a specific example I’ve got that feels similar is Dustcar Racing Syndicate

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/e2705b47-d136-4e47-84ea-94476e46910e

it’s made up of several people in a Discord server who generally make music under a time constraint (like a week), but they have released a couple charity albums featuring tracks from their members (with some collaboration, but generally no more than two or three people of the 15 or so that made it on the albums)

another example I’m quite familiar with is Pinkamena Party (most of this also applies to similar groups like Ponies at Dawn, A State of Sugar, and Equinity)

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/c857ebd5-6d1a-4bcb-a29a-970364ad2e5d

this is one of those examples where a series doesn’t quite work, since they’ve got a few, the mainline series, and each release usually has a spinoff release based on a holiday. (that said, there’s a few releases this doesn’t apply to, like Just Rocks or IT’S 2018 BPM, which aren’t spinoffs of mainline releases)

I forget if PP has public submissions or not, but I know some of these groups do allow absolutely anyone to submit tracks to be included on the album. some have online groups (forums, Discord servers, etc.) for members, some might not.

I feel like a new artist type would be useful, as it could be used to denote compilations (in the general sense, not the MusicBrainz definition, see here) released by a semi-consistent group of individual artists

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Here’s an additional example

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/584359d8-5ac8-46c2-8f7b-2664a36fb830

Considered a group here, although most platforms list these releases as “Various Artists”

There’s also a matter of an academy or artist’s association, which tend to exist on the boundary of a place (with no location), a series (but membership can end) and a group (but there’s no performances, per the group guidelines).

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I agree. I removed such an artist credit, but I feel that it should definitely not be a VA release…

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In this case, I would not create another artist. There’s already a label named the same thing. Many Various Artists releases are by small labels/collectives.

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