[Release] What is the use of the « Recording artist: » mention for different join phrases or different aliases?

MusicBrainz
1

What is the use of the « Recording artist: » mention for guidelines compliant differing join phrases or artist credited as ?

Honest question.[1]

Subject : Improving UX/UI, Onboarding, making sense, semiotics

Since time immemorial, when there are any discrepancies between the join phrases or artists as credited of the recording and of the release, it shows this little phrase below the recording of the release :

Recording artist:

Example :
image
The discrepancy on this release : the join phrase of the release is “feat.” (from a 2020 compilation) instead of “feat” (from the back cover of the 1999 original release).

Why should this be noted ?
What is the use in knowing that the recording join phrase lacks a dot ?
What purpose does it serve ?

I have the same question for artist credited as.

I couldn’t find any reasonable reason, hence the creation of this topic. Thank you in advance !

(I’ll do a ticket if it is an absurd legacy thingy that should be removed)

Extended explanation (sorry for length, typos etc.)

Intro :

This recording artist: flag is seen by editors as a disclaimer. A warning that something is incorrect, or something should be noted, modified.

It helps editors in detecting these following errors that need intervention :

  • Extremely common : Incorrect featuring artist !
  • Fairly common : Featurings artist missing.
  • Rarer[2] : Wrong main artist !

With this in mind :

1st Question : Which behaviour the discrepancy flag for join phrases asks of editors ?

My possibly ignorant answer :

None, therefore, it should be axed.

My hypothesis for this existing :

There was a time on MusicBrainz where the only “join phrase” that could be used was feat. for standardization purposes.
But it was changed at some point for less than a decade.

See this February 2026 discussion with @agatzk learning this quite old change [and] this one confirming it here.

→ Now, for join phrases

(whatever is printed should generally be used)[3]

2nd Question : Which behaviour the discrepancy flag for artist alias asks of editors ?

My possibly ignorant answer :

Given the Guidelines :

Artist credits should generally follow the actual credit used on the release / track, including the join phrases.

None.

My hypothesis for this existing :

None, why would a good artist crediting sticking to the rules be noticed ? Let’s take an example :

If a featured artist is called on the back cover “Hey” in the original 2007 release but “Heydo”[4] in a 2009 reissue. Same artist page.

It is a discrepancy from the original artist credited as ; therefore, you’ll have in the recording of the 2009 release:

Recording artist: XXX feat. Hey

Is this helping ? What does it bring ? What does it informs ?

Doesn’t it confuse people not confident on their mastering of the guidelines ?

Behaviours created by the flag of differing CORRECT AND GUIDELINE COMPLIANT Join Phrases and Aliases/Artist credited as :[5]

  • Uncalled for Status Quo Guardianship : Editors modifying/not modifying their join phrase from a digital release[6] in order to stick to the recording original join phrase[7].

  • Cultivates non-compliance from guidelines : or How come it is the good artist name if the artist name as credited is flagged !

  • Good Faith Overcorrections : “Oh : It lacks a dot after “feat” ! I’ll add it”. When it was correct as the original editor simply sticked to what is printed on the physical back cover.

→ Impact Listenbrainz matching + search. Idk for sponsors.
→ Creates mostly unintended edit wars (serial modifications of join phrases of a recording).

  1. I joined Musicbrainz in October 2025. ↩︎

  2. It is a rare case because, in my experience, 1) Most editors do not check if the recording already exist before before submitting it 2) Even if they do, it is uncommon for them to find the “correct recording” because it is the wrong artist ! (even though this issue is helped by the fact that the “recordings suggestions” below are first and foremost linked because of tracklength similarity, rather that with track name/artist name) THEREFORE : bots and users have an additional difficulty in merging them ↩︎

  3. IN ACCORDANCE with style guidelines ; not caps on “feat” “and” in English, French, Spanish etc. ↩︎

  4. not a mistake, just an ANV/Aliase existing ↩︎

  5. The behaviours arot systematic, just a general trend ↩︎

  6. Tidal/Spotify etc. only uses commas as a join phrase, Apple Music/iTunes automatically uses “feat.” then commas ↩︎

  7. the existing one originating from : back cover (guidelines compliant), discogs or old rules etc. ↩︎

2

Mostly for classical stuff where recording artists are expected to differ from track artist.

This is particularly useful in two cases:
a) when a user has fixed a track artist but forgotten to fix the recording artist, or vice versa.
b) for classical music, where the recording artist should usually be different from the track artist.

3

Okay, @chaban I’ll edit the post because I explicitely say that is it useful for Missing Featurings + and differing recording artist.

I talk about differing :

  1. Join Phrases
  2. Artist credited as

With recordings AND release credits and artist guidelines compliant and exempted of error.

So, your answer is not engaging with my question. My fault, I shouldn’t have put the detailed explanation in a box.

4

1\ You also get places where a compilation will credit different to a release. Example something credited to “Adam and the Ants” that was actually “Adam Ant” as a solo

2\ Again I think I’d point to a Various Artist compilation (but I am a little confused by your question).

Generally the Recording Artist is the better way something is credited. Usually the majority or original way an artist was named on their original single\album. And you only see a difference pop up when a VA or later release uses a variation on the credit.

Picking on the difference between “feat” and “feat.” I agree is fairly petty… but it is a difference. Don’t worry about it.

5

1/ Yes. Like recordings having different names, typos, aliases. But we do not have a “Recording name :” flag.

Why don’t we have a :

Recording name:

if, as the ticket Chaban quoted

This is particularly useful […]
a) when a user has fixed a track artist but forgotten to fix the recording artist, or vice versa." ?

Why only differences with recording artist and join phrase should be “uselessly” noted ? Don’t we care about having good recording names ? Don’t we care about not forgetting to fix recording name ?

If it is such an important thing, it makes NO SENSE for it to be limited ONLY to join phrases, artist credit and artist as credited.

Actually, I’m saying that it should be limited ONLY to artist credit differences. See my

It helps editors in detecting these following errors that need intervention :

  • Extremely common : Incorrect featuring artist !
  • Fairly common : Featurings artist missing.
  • Rarer : Wrong main artist !

It’s not ; it’s the first one or the last person who clicked on “modify artist credit” and waited 7 days.

At least in the my wide area of edition that is populated with :

  • Beginner editors from SensCritique who want to rate a release quickly.
  • Intermediate editors from SensCritique who do not know the existence of Style Guidelines and Harmony.
  • 4 active experts editors, none adding works except me.
  • Tens of thousands of releases made between 2002 and 2009 that were never touched before my arrival.

Nevermind actually, even for italo-disco, eurodance, ragga, neo-funk and downtempos areas, there is the same issue, but it is 90% of VA releases.

No, we LARGELY see differences pop up with Digital Releases that are HEGEMONIOUS in today musical industry. Given the GENERAL lack of “feat.”.

Join phrases “pettiness” is everywhere. For no reason, as there is nothing to do.

Artist, Artist & Artist (harmony)

VS

Artist feat. Artist & Artist (Apple Music/Back Cover)

In my field, it’s mostly “feat. Artist (Artist group)” VS “Artist” (but it happened a lot also before Digital, with rereleases ! even without VAs !).

VA are a drop in the water compared to the tremendous amount of digital rerelease these last 10 years. Hence why I talked about it in my post.

Yeah.

This is why I made this topic.

It is not I that I worry about it, I know why it exists, I know that I shouldn’t care.

This is why the topic is “WHAT IS THE USE OF…”.

Not “should I worry ? uwuuuuu”

I thought about it. I made this topic.

So.

I’m saying that underlining a little difference that makes no difference is weird and creates useless behaviour.

It is a little thing, but you see it almost everywhere. And it’s difficult to make sense of it for every beginner/intermediates level editors.

That I feel :
that we should try to improve musicbrainz horrendous onboarding process that hinders everything.
That we should improve UX/UI issues, like this one that you weren’t able to make sense of it beyond “it is what it is”
That if we say “we don’t care about that” is negligence. It is a thing that is a small issue now ONLY because of the relatively low amount of active users, but that will be much more a “concern” if MUBz grows.

The issue I’m talking about is in my post :

Behaviours created by the flag of differing CORRECT AND GUIDELINE COMPLIANT Join Phrases and Aliases/Artist credited as :

  • Uncalled for Status Quo Guardianship : Editors modifying/not modifying their join phrase from a digital release in order to stick to the recording original join phrase.

  • Cultivates non-compliance from guidelines : or How come it is the good artist name if the artist name as credited is flagged !

  • Good Faith Overcorrections : “Oh : It lacks a dot after “feat” ! I’ll add it”. When it was correct as the original editor simply sticked to what is printed on the physical back cover.

→ Impact Listenbrainz matching + search. Idk for sponsors.
→ Creates mostly unintended edit wars (serial modifications of join phrases of a recording.

6

When a community edits something, then sometimes noobs make errors that are then later corrected. And I remember that SensCritique name from somewhere in the past as they made an awful mess of things.

We all recognise this kind of issue. Different editors work on different parts of the database. Some add art, some add works, some import releases, some do all of this. Every little helps.

I personally add every tiny bit of info from my CDs. So I thank you for your deep dive into the info you are hitting. I personally find it really satisfying when I clean up an unloved artist and fill out everything I can for someone who had been lost and forgotten in the database. And likely rarely looked at.

The digital release dominance is something we just have to deal with, but this does not stop someone correcting the recordings after that digital editor has made a mess of them. Often talking to the editor making errors gets results. We all have to learn somewhere.

You seem very focused on feat\feat. when the real use of that Recording Arist field is when there are bigger variations on the actual artist names. Like in your example where “Hey” recorded a track in 2007 and they put it out again a couple of years later under the name of “Heydo”. This is a good example as the original recording was made as “Hey” and this is how MusicBrainz will document it. It is the same recording, so one common name of “Hey” is used. But on the two different tracklists there can now exist the two different ways the artist wants to credit the track.

Now when you look at the HeyDo release you’ll see the “Recording Artist: Hey” pop-up on the left. Not saying there is an error, just information as to what it was originally recorded as.

A “guideline compliant join phrase” is just as seen on the original release. Just the same as the guidelines say to write the artist name as printed. Yeah, digital then comes along with confused ideas, this is why there is a guideline as to what is correct when clashing data is entered.

This is why the guidelines are there that the original \ most common variation of a name is used. Yes it means some digital editors using scripts don’t pay attention. And someone else then corrects it as per the original release. Having data flagged due to that dot in feat is not really an issue, but the way the site is written will flag a dot the same way it flags a totally different performance name being used.

Though I do agree with you on the third point. I find it comically petty when someone changes a “feat” to a “feat.”

That seems to me more like a 3rd party issue. MB’s database should be kept to a high standard and leave Last FM / ListenBrainz / SenseCritic work out their own solutions for data matching. Otherwise you end up dropping to the lowest common denominator of bad data mush.

I have seen Last FM editors come to MB and attempt to make a mess of the database. And eventually they get banned. Same with the artwork getting added from Google and not a reliable source. If an edit war starts, then it should get reported.

We are all concerned with data quality. That’s why many of us are here.

I can also see you are upset at some of this, and a lot of related issues are pouring out, but I am not sure as to your suggested solutions. We’ve all gone through similar “why MB do things like this?” questions in our time here. :laughing:

Your key point of “why is “recording artist” being flagged on the left” is an item you can easily ignore. It is not saying something that is wrong. It is just information. Maybe a tweak could be made to not show this line when the only difference is a common join phrase - i.e. feat, feat., featured being ignored as the same thing.

You also seem confused that this is only popping on due to the join phrase. It is literally pattern matching the whole text string. The join phrase in there is unlikely to ever have been thought of. That one dot means there is a difference, but as a human you see that and know you can ignore it. It is not saying it is incorrect.

7

The note just shows up if there is a difference between the credits on the track and the recording. The purpose is to show that there is a difference.

Whether that difference is warranted or an error to be fixed depends on the case.

2 Likes
8

The main reason it was added in any case was for classical music, where we expect to have a difference between track artist and recording artist and both entries are useful at the same time (while we do not expect the same to be the case between track title and recording title). The fact that it helps see edits where someone forgot to propagate release changes to the recording is a nice plus though :slight_smile:

4 Likes