Is there a current best-practice for situations like Release group “Cyberpunk 2077: Radio, Vol. 2 (Original Soundtrack)” by Various Artists - MusicBrainz where each track is credited to (something like) “<real band> as <fictional band>” ?
My question is not so much about how the credits on the release should be, but how should the entries for <real band> and <fictional band> be edited/related. Is there an appropriate Artist-Artist relationship for situations like this? Is there (or should there be) a specific artist type that would be a good fit for <fictional band> ?
For an example, I’ve updated the “Window Weather” band below to be a “Character”, and added a “voiced by” relationship to the real band. But it doesn’t feel quite right.
I initially wondered why the real artist entities shouldn’t just be used directly, with the “artist as credited” field used to specify the fictional names. To answer my own question, the fictional artists sometimes have relationships that don’t apply to the real artists, like biographies.
(I will make an impassioned plea to add “fictional artist from Cyberpunk 2077 portrayed by X” disambiguations to all of these artists.)
Think it might have something to do with how they’re credited. The real artist and the fictional one are both tagged on the soundtrack’s Bandcamp page and this carries on when you go to streaming so the real artists are credited alongside their in-game persona/s, so whoever created the edits for the Cyberpunk soundtracks probably thought this was the best option, to accomodate both artist names.
I personally would not use this, as it goes against pretty much everything I’ve seen in the database, including Japanese CV (character voice) credits (example) and how I’ve been handling the Remix War credits where an artist emulates another’s style (example)
I would favor:
[performing artist] as [fictional artist]
with both artists linked, or however they’re credited on the release
That is not really true. I agree with @jesus2099. I see plenty of places where a one off performance by an artist can happen under an alias. This way the performance appears under the original artist.
It also happens a lot when an artist performs in an Audio Drama and you see the spoken credit has their character name just linked as the alias as their own name.
Otherwise you could get a confusion if everytime some was Macbeth you’d get dozens of Macbeth’s listed instead of linking back to the actor.
but if it were credited in the artist field as “Macbeth as [actor]”, Macbeth (in theory) would include all similarly credited portrayals of the character from Macbeth.
that said, I suppose you bring up a fair point, I don’t deal with audio dramas, plays, and the like, and I guess they’re not credited the same way over there.
however, since both artists are credited in the artist field on Bandcamp, I will still encourage crediting both artists, as it’s currently entered.
I don’t know the game or the music so can’t see where “both artists” are credited. Is that just the fictional names listed there as it appears in the games?
I can’t think of better examples at the moment, but there are certainly examples in the database of artists doing one off performances using an alias. The “performs as” relationship is more aimed at when an artist sees that as a separate project and does multiple pieces under that name…
If this is a game company buying some music \ performances and then inserting it into the game with an alias then this is just an alias. Same as the voice over stars getting listed in IMDB. It is just a part being acted.
Or maybe something like Pulp Fiction soundtrack where the actors are appearing in the audio. Here we see they are credited with their real names, but in the recording relationships you see aliases used of their screen names attached to the vocal.
based on the artist @bsammon linked in the OP, it’s both. for example, track 4 is credited to Window Weather (fictional group) and HEALTH (performing artist)
So teh track and recording now have the same artist credited twice? That seems a little odd. Maybe the track list has an excuse of “as seen on a digital file credit”, but I’d set the recording to just one artist. If you are going the full character route, then you should not put in both.
I don’t remember whether only the fictional names were shown in-game, if at all. There were a couple radio stations to choose from when driving (there were also some scattered around throughout the game word).
If I had to guess, both the fictional and real artists are credited on music platforms due to statistics, royalties or something like that. Maybe it’s even simpler and rather about recognizability so a player can find it by that character’s name.
See also how rateyourmusic handled this: https://rateyourmusic.com/admin/corq/?req_id=8996613
So here’s an interesting situation, so for a bit of context all artists in the soundtrack preform under and assumed in-universe alias. Problem is, as streaming sites aren’t album well equipped to take pseudonym’s into account, so we have a mess here they’re officially listed with the original artists AND the in-game alias.
Since RYM does not have this problem, however, I have filled this out in a way best fits how the game’s developer’s and music supervisor’s intended to showcase the artist; 1. Have the tracks be listed as the in-universe alias as these songs are considered canon and not just background music (linking where appropriate). 2. Credit the original artists as songwriters so to not “spoil” who they are but too still give credit.
If you think the artist credit’s are redundant, let me know, but I still think this is the best way to handle this.
