Question on same named but different track order releases

MusicBrainz
1

Regarding Ed Smith - MusicBrainz , both of the “Smooth Jazz Christmas” release groups. I have both releases in my possession and have been updating the information for these, however I had a couple of questions.

The main question is if I should I merge these releases together? As far as I can tell, most of the songs are shared between the two. The 2011 release does have 8 extra songs, but also the 2007 release has a few that are not present on the 2011 release. Also, the songs are in a completely different order between the two. I looked at the wiki for what a “Release Group” was, but it didn’t really tell me whether this was two releases in a release group, or two separate release groups with the same name. I added disambiguations to both in the mean time with just their year.

The other questions is if I should make these release groups (merged or otherwise) an “Album + Compilation” instead of “Album”? Since these releases are 4 years apart and have shared songs, I assume it’s a compilation. But I wanted to ask to be sure.

2

The 2007 version isn’t a compilation. Just an album. It’s new recordings, just cover songs. On MB, to be a compilation it has to have previously released recordings. Are the shared recordings on the 2011 identical to the ones on the 2007 release? If so, I can see them possibly being merged.

1 Like
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Everything on the 2007 release except the following two songs seem to be the exact same song present on the 2011 release:

  1. 1-07. Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
  2. 2-05. The Christmas Waltz

That means the 2011 release has 10 songs that are not on the 2007 release, and these 2 are not on the 2011. They share 18 songs in a different order.