Inspired by this post Request for votes, but my question is in regards to Monstercat compilation releases.
On almost every compilation release from the Monstercat label, there is a DJ-mixed track consisting of all the other tracks from the album. My question is, who should be credited as their artist? I haven’t found any information about the artist who DJ-mixed these tracks together. There are couple of options that come to mind and I wonder which should be the correct one. These are the options which come to mind:
Various Artists: In the DJ-mix example from the topic I linked at the beginning, the editor @221bbs says in https://musicbrainz.org/edit/45932094: “Have to disagree, Yes this contain all the songs, and if this was the only thing, it would stay VA.” suggesting that if there are non-mixed songs compiled into one track, they should be credited to Various Artists. There are some Monstercat albums credited this way currently, e.g. https://musicbrainz.org/release/93a713bb-1f39-4821-8498-d81dc508b951 (tracks 31 and 32).
[unknown]:@KRSCuan suggests in https://musicbrainz.org/edit/29778641 that this should be changed to [unknown]. For the release in the edit linked above (and all other with [unknown] artist) it was changed later to Monstercat (bogus artist) and it seems that none of the Monstercat releases still use [unknown] anymore.
I am confused and don’t know which artist credit should be used for the tracks in question, but I really want this to be consistent and also clear for any future additions so I’m asking if anyone is familiar with similar examples or familiar with Monstercat releases to help so we can figure out the correct artist. Any feedback appreciated!
There seems to be two ways to treat continuous mixes. As track or release.
In most cases, artists to the songs in the mix are known, If we were to treat the mix as a track, then it makes sense to list all the artist involved in the songs. But this option doesn’t seem to make sense to me.
If we were to treat this as a release, using Various Artist/DJ-mixer makes sense with DJ-mixer taking priority.
In either case, using [unknown] doesn’t seem right. (I use to do this before being corrected by a mod)
Making up artists that doesn’t exist isn’t the answer. An option might be use the credit as feature with Various Artists?
There’s a small misunderstanding there. The common practice (though afaik not official style guideline) is to credit such DJ-mixes to the respective mixer. And that’s what I suggested changing the individual credits to, in the edit note you linked. [unknown] only were to be used for the cases where that person is unknown, so the remaining stuff should be merged into it.
I’m part of the fraction who argues that VA shouldn’t ever (guidelines say: “shouldn’t usually”) be used for tracks/recordings. I also disagree with the Monstercat artist that was newly re-added by @CyberSkull. This shouldn’t have been done, though I don’t know how exactly we dealt with its previous incarnation.
I just looked at how is stuff credited in mb and there are currently 36 compilation albums from Monstercat which include DJ-mixed tracks. 24 releases credit them to the bogus Monstercat artist, 7 credit them to Various Artists and 5 credit them to actual mixers, however I only found info for 2 out of the 5 mixers so I have no idea how accurate are the other 3. So is your proposition to credit the DJ-mixed tracks on the 31 releases as [unknown]?
Has anyone tried getting in touch with someone from Monstercat?
If Monstercat has someone/people on their team or in their employ who puts these mixes together, but doesn’t consider them part of ‘their’ discography, but a product of the label.
Just to throw a spanner in the works - in that case ‘Monstercat’ would provide the most accurate information, and also the most useful relationships if someone did want to track down specifics about who did what for releases.
I changed it to Monstercat from [unkown] because someone under their auspices of did the remixing work, and that is how they themselves credit it (for example, http://music.monstercat.com/album/monstercat-best-of-2015). I feel that it is more accurate than unknown because it has been credited to Monstercat by themselves.
I feel that it is more accurate than unknown because it has been credited to Monstercat by themselves.
This is not true for all releases, as you can see in the example in my second post: Monstercat 030 - Finale | Various Artists | Monstercat doesn’t have anyone credited (talking about music.monstercat.com pages). I feel like the best way is to just contact Monstercat and find out more info about it (Edit: Sent them an e-mail just now), but I still wonder what should be used for the sake of future additions, because currently it looks like everyone responding in this thread chose a different option, which does not really help.
I agree that the “Monstercat” on their site i just a placeholder and that’s why I called it a “bogus artist” in my initial post. The DJ-mixers are not “part” of the Monstercat label (they might still be associated with it). These are the mixers which are currently known (first 2 also listed on Discogs):
Alright, received a feedback from Monstercat! The only request they had is whether the information will be displayed publicly or not, so I explained that it will be public and also where it will be displayed. The existing 5 DJ-mixers we already had should be correct, 2 additional mixes should be credited to Going Quantum (Monstercat 012: Aftermath - Order Album Mix and Monstercat Christmas Album 2012 - Christmas Album Mix 2012) and they actually want to credit “Monstercat” as the DJ-mixer on all of the remaining albums. So it looks like this one is settled I already credited the mixes on the 2 releases to Going Quantum and moved the few VA we had to “Monstercat”. I will add the DJ-mixer relationships tomorrow.
So Monstercat is a artist (as well). Ehh, what other better solution do we have if the labels aren’t even willing to provide correct credit information?
I’ll definitely agree that this makes it rather difficult to handle the recordings, but we have “character” artists, and fictionalized groups presumably fit just as comfortably under “group” as real ones. Almost everywhere else, “as written” is the ruling guideline, and I don’t see any reason why we’d make an exception just because the entities they’re credited to don’t exist. Leave the “Monstercat” alias, credit the mix tracks to it, and then figure out what to do for the recording.
Except for not knowing who’s behind the music, some of the albums I’ve been working with are similar: they’re credited to the franchise and the tracks are credited to the characters, while we’ve named the voice actors on the recordings. The only question remaining is what to do with the release group, but since that doesn’t apply to the Monstercat stuff, I won’t clutter this thread with it.
Leave the “Monstercat” alias, credit the mix tracks to it, and then figure out what to do for the recording.
I see no reason why we wouldn’t also credit the recordings with “Monstercat” since they specifically told me to credit them this way. I’d consider this very much as “artist intent” (well, coming from a label).
I already credited the mixes on the 2 releases to Going Quantum and moved the few VA we had to “Monstercat”. I will add the DJ-mixer relationships tomorrow.