Does it make sense to use a release series to track that certain editions of releases are exclusive to the same retailer even if the releases share nothing else in common?
For example,
Personally, I would expect that release series share something in common that’s more fundamental to the music itself (e.g., common genre, common theme, or is officially numbered by the record company) rather than sharing a retailer. Only sharing a retailer usually results in the release series’ music not sharing anything else in common (e.g., a large mix of unrelated genres, a large mix of unrelated record companies not collaborating with each other, etc.)
There has been a lot of discussion on series in the past (e.g., I have found a very weird series), and other posts I can’t find from Style/Community Leader(s) about items in a series being serial in nature (e.g., numbered), but I’m not sure this specific example has been touched.
to my knowledge tho, I don’t think Discogs has an equivalent entity type to our series (save for these labels)… it feels like they just bodged it into the system they had (granted, they don’t have events or artist awards over there, so maybe it does make more sense for us to have series)
I think a series can make sense in these cases. this is a physical feature of these releases, usually in the form of a sticker on the wrapper and quite often with exclusive bonus tracks. while they’re not serial in nature, they are a collection of releases (moreso than the typical label, in my mind) with a unifying trait, and I think a series fits this role quite well
however, perhaps a label relationship could be a good solution… that said, having these as labels might imply that they can be used as release labels to some editors. the amount of releases I’ve seen under non-imprint labels with “do not use” in the disambiguation is pretty crazy, lol
also wanted to add a similar example in the iTunes Single of the Week
If I could trust our users to not use “Walmart” as a release label for every release sold in Walmart, I would say labels make sense for this. But I have the same fear as @UltimateRiff, having seen the same thing in all the “do not use” labels…
My understanding of a release series is that it is simply an ordering of the releases. There’s no need that they share a common genre.
Here’s a release on the Starbucks coffee label
One can easily find all the releases on the label
I don’t understand the need for the changes you propose. If the label on the releases is not the retailer name, then it is simple to put them in a release series. I think that the label should be what is on the media - such as shown in this Starbucks Coffee example.