Hi, I’ve run into a situation with some releases (9 singles, one artist, multiple names) that I’m not sure how to enter, and wanted to check in here before making a mess in the database. - Link to MB artist
These are the main questions that I think are pertinent:
Do these differences in artist name between Apple and other stores justify separate releases, even when they share a UPC?
Does an artist renaming a SoundCloud profile equal a “new” release of tracks they already had uploaded before the rename? (Does how it happens to show up on the day I’m adding them to the database matter?)
If a SoundCloud release had older and more recent versions due to the account’s display name changing, should artwork be attached to the oldest version, or the most recent one, when I can’t tell for sure that there were no changes made to the artwork in the interim?
Tangentially: Should featured artists of a single always go in the release and release group artist credits, even in a case where the featured artist is only listed in the title? (I’m guessing the answer might be “yes”. If so, I’ve gotten a couple of these wrong and I should go back and fix them.)
I’ve gathered all the data (release dates, links to stores, links to Harmony) I can find together into a spreadsheet, and written up my best guess as to what the releases would look like given my current understanding of Style / Release - MusicBrainz:
(For some reason this link says “This Sheet is private” in the preview, but I think it should still open without login since it’s set to “Publish to Web”.)
Each single is in a separate spreadsheet tab. The data I gathered is in the top rows, then my best guess at the releases to enter below.
Would you combine any of these? In particular the “releases” caused by successive SoundCloud account display name changes? Conversely, am I missing any that should be split further?
Do these interpretations of the dates look correct? There seems to be quite a bit of backdating of releases here, not always consistent, that makes it confusing.
No. If it’s just a difference in how a store credits an artist it is not enough to create a new release. We actually use what’s printed on the cover art if available. If the cover art, barcode, any labels differences, i.e. copyright, etc. would be different. On singles, same, unless they are just using the parent LP cover art. However, yes, if a single has a feat. on the cover art or is only 1 track, then the feat artist should also be credited on the release/release group. As far as Soundcloud, I’m not really an expert on that.
I agree with @tigerman325 in that I’d usually disregard differences in artist credits across online stores for releases that are otherwise the same (e.g. same tracklist, cover art, UPC, approximate release date, etc.). This mostly comes down to interpreting the artist’s intent – did they really intend for these to be considered two distinct versions of the album, or are the differences just due to how the songs were uploaded, how the platforms display featured artists, etc.?
Handling the name changes is tricky, though. Each release ought to be credited to whichever name was in use on the release date, with those releases later marked as withdrawn and new releases created with the artist’s new name if the were updated (i.e. “re-released”, although that feels hand-wavy for online releases).
Without having archived snapshots of the release pages taken shortly after the release date, I think that using your “Artist at release date (probable)” guesses makes sense.
Leave them separate, and just follow the listed credits in determining which artist to link to (probably my preference, since it might be less confusing as the releases could be attached to the names they’re primarily associated with. That also would loosely split them by genre - witch house releases would mostly end up under ANGELHEX, and pop/crossover under Holly Stell)
Or, merge them, and probably rename the artist to ANGELHEX as that’s the most current branding that’s widely used across online stores.
But I don’t know what’s best, or if there’s a policy about that.
EDIT 4/3/25: Discovered that HEXY is in use on commercial stores too, so it’s not just a nickname like I was wondering if it might be. That makes me more neutral on keeping them separate vs merging.
Earlier today I also found an edit note suggesting that someone thought there were two separate artists named Holly Stell, which I don’t believe is the case. I asked there to see if there was any more context for that (edit: heard back, sounds like it might be a red herring).
Coincidentally, the last artist I did a deep editing dive on actually had a similar situation: Rock band “Fahrenheit” parted ways after their third album, but some of the members still released a few singles, uploading them as “Fahrenheit”. Then, the remaining members and some new ones rebranded as “FHT”, and retroactively renamed those few singles from being “Fahrenheit” singles to “FHT” singles.
if a single has a feat. on the cover art or is only 1 track, then the feat artist should also be credited on the release/release group
I’ve opened some edits to fix cases where I got this wrong. Thank you!
I think I’ll plan to add these ANGELHEX singles probably this weekend. Hopefully that gives enough time for anyone else who might want to leave other input first to weigh in. Thanks again all.
I’ve personally done this a couple times, the best example being Twilike Wonder (previously Childlike Wonder). note how each release group before the name change has one Childlike release and one Twilike release (with the date as the day they changed names, announced with a YouTube video)
as long as it seems to be an artist rename, I probably would do similar (unless they renamed to Childlike Wonder (follow my new account) or something similar)
I’d go with the current/most recent version if unsure, since there’s quite often no way of telling, especially with SoundCloud releases
