howdy~
partly inspired by discussion in the Discord with @duckfromd and @aerozol, I’ve just put in some tickets for new group artist types:
I feel like more detailed group types could be a useful data point for data consumers as well as regular users
making this post both to make people aware that these might be coming soon to a MusicBrainz near you. also, if there’s a type missing, feel free to make your own tickets~
What’s the difference between group and band? I always considered them as synonyms in the context of music group / band. But maybe that is also because in German we use both “Gruppe” and the English term “Band”.
a group (at least to my understanding of the MusicBrainz docs) is any group of musicians who play together (orchestras and choirs are also subtypes of group). a band specifically refers to rock and pop bands (at least when it comes to the type I’m proposing) (also not limited to just those genres of course, but that basic configuration. ska bands, funk bands, metal bands and more can fall under this type)
It seems Band only exists in English?
See how there is no other language WP linked to that English article.
In French, it’s also the same word (groupe de rock).
It may be difficult to translate the difference with Group.
If it’s too much tied to a genre (rock), it could be subjective and we should maybe avoid it?
one group type I want to add but don’t know if there’s a proper name for is electronic groups, such as The Glitch Mob, Knife Party, or Eiffel 65
I mean, most of these groups types are tied to genres, for what it’s worth… I don’t think that’s a bad thing tho. a band with guitars and a drummer are probably not going to be making orchestral music, nor is an orchestra likely to make punk music, and a barbershop quartet might find it difficult to make electronic music.
So band would be more specific? But it’s not only pop and rock, right? Also Jazz, Country and other popular genres. Is a big band a band or an orchestra?
I think it would be really important to get a clear definition of this term and and clearly defined distinction from group.
It is used as a loan word in German, see Band (Musik) – Wikipedia . But I think it is used more broadly there, hence my confusion. The German article links to the English article for “Musical ensemble”.
correct. the typical instruments would be a drum set, bass, guitar, and sometimes vocals, but it could include jazz bands, punk bands, country bands, bluegrass bands, and the like. edit: which each can have different or additional instruments, of course
confusingly, big bands are often called orchestras, like Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. I’ve generally thought of the MusicBrainz orchestra type to be more like a symphony orchestra (i.e. a western classical orchestra), but I could see a jazz orchestra falling under either category (or neither)
edit: also confusingly, pop vocal groups consisting of only males (think *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, or BTS) are often called Boy Bands. I believe this is simply for alliterations sake tho
Not going to lie, this seems like way too many types for me - as it is, I already feel we have a lot of artist types and people don’t always use them correctly. I wouldn’t expect to see any sort of pop/rock groups separated by type - Backstreet Boys and My Chemical Romance seem to be close enough for me to be more than happy to call them both Group. We split Orchestra and Choir because they were very different, and even there there’s a gray area between a small choir and a big group 
I agree that this is too many types and their definition is prone to cultural differences and fluid interpretations of genres. For now, the only type of group I believe we are missing is virtual group (I prefer the name fictional group), which is the multi-person counterpart to the existing “character” artist type.
I don’t know what the other types add to the data. Sub-unit duplicates the function of the subgroup artist-artist relationship, for example. Many of these proposals seem to be mere amalgamations of existing genre tags and artist types (e.g. jazz + orchestra).
While I appreciate many of your proposals, I am not quite sure what we are aiming at with the differentiation between group artist types. Is it organization, aesthetics, marketing?
As already mentioned band and group feel synonymous to me. Also imo supergroup is only relevant on a marketing level.
…and if I choose the Dutch language link to that lemma it brings me to … Muziekgroep (music group), with some examples of “types of bands”: big band, boyband, meidengroep (girl group) and supergroep.
I see a lot of opportunity for confusion here 
as primarily a popular music editor, vocal groups (Backstreet Boys) and bands (My Chemical Romance) feel like very different things to me, in a similar way to how a choir and orchestra feel very different. it feels odd to me that such core facts about popular music groups get relegated to tags (like band, virtual group, and boy band) and the relationship subpage (and only when members are known and added)
on the band vs. group distinction, in my mind a band is a type of music group. you could call the Backstreet Boys and My Chemical Romance music groups, but I wouldn’t call the Backstreet Boys a band, whereas MCR is. to me, “band” generally implies the group plays instruments and “group” does not necessarily
I didn’t realize how much confusion there’d be just among different European languages* (and probably others, of course), but I think as long as we have clear definitions, it should be fine
*how very American of me, lol
mostly for organization and a bit of aesthetics. perhaps I did get a bit crazy with the cheeze whiz and start out with too many tho… lol
I believe there’s several applications for this data, a few I’ve thought of:
some of this could be achieved with tags to a point, but again, something like the basic formation of a group feels odd to relegate to tags
also, sub-unit doesn’t exactly duplicate the function of the subgroup relationship, as you can have subgroups of bands, choirs, and orchestras, which I wouldn’t likely call a sub-unit (I’ve personally only seen the term used for vocal groups)
an alternative solution, if MBS-8393 (Extend dynamic attributes to all entities) ever gets implemented, these could be artist attributes. in fact this might be preferred, as that could allow for multiple types, for example Gorillaz could be a virtual group + band and μ’s could be a virtual group + vocal group
My concern is that these new types are really dependent on an editor’s discretion and understanding of what those words mean. For example, is Backstreet Boys not a boy band? But no women-equivalent term exists, so Spice Girls is not a girl band but a girl group. This naming scheme was created for aesthetic reasons so that “boy band” and “girl group” start with the same letter.
This is different for the case of choir and orchestra, because there are differences that are consistent. Choirs have almost all performers (excluding the conductor and accompanist) producing sound with vocals; orchestras have almost all performers (excluding the conductor) producing sound using instruments. I can’t think of an ambiguous case where a choir could also be called an orchestra. There’s also an established convention to distinguish orchestras from, say, a string quartet or a chamber ensemble.
Another issue: What about groups that began as bands and abandoned all instruments to become a vocal group? Make another artist entity with the same member relationships?
Is there a particular problem this proposal is trying to solve by distinguishing different types of subgroups (sub-units being a type of subgroup limited to K-pop/J-pop groups and those inspired by them)?
It’s already possible to qualify groups as subgroups of groups, without having to additionally change their group type:
https://musicbrainz.org/relationship/7802f96b-d995-4ce9-8f70-6366faad758e
I agree that too many types will lead to confusion. Especially when groups change their style of music.
Not all music fits into a neat box.
For me it would cause a problem when adding a group I don’t know much about. For example when adding an obscure compilation CD. I’ve often added bands I have known little about, and can’t find much reference to online. Too many categories would mean I could not then put them into a category based on a single track.
Especially the band vs group thing. I’m a Brit and really do just see these as the same word I’d swap around in conversation. Do I change every group with an electric guitar to band? I would be utterly confused for much of my music.
In that list above - why is “Babershop Quartet” separated from “Vocal Group”. Is that just because there are four of them? What happens when a band does a few albums as vocal only? Too much confusions of trying to put things in smaller boxes.
And then surely a “supergroup” should be a “superband”?
You are opening up a potential wormhole of confusions… 
I’m normally pretty much in favor for additions and flexibility but I’m not so sure here… I think a lot of this content would be better to be logged as a tag more than anything else.
I do agree with a comment above that virtual group seems sensible as an addition since it’s the group equivalent of character though 
Does anyone have a problem with that specific one? If not, I might add it in a few days.
sure then i can correctly classify British music cult icons The Tweenies and The Teletubbies 
Not sure if The Tweenies and The Teletubbies are “virtual” as there are real people in those suits… I thought “Virtual” would be more for anime \ computerised creations?
Which already kinda shows the problems with vague categories… 