I am in contact with a guy who used to run the Music & Elsewhere label, who released about 600 cassette albums between 1987 and 2003. After they folder, the collection was sold to a collector. He has the index (month/year of release, artist, title, catalogue number) but in many cases no track list.
Reading the following this could be no problem and I agree with the reasoning:
It’s a rather old topic so I thought better to ask first…
Thanks!
Hi, @jerry1970 :
Thank you for your enthusiasm for adding more facts to the database, and for your diligence about adding them right.
I think you are correct. I too agree with the reasoning in the previous topic, especially this wisdom:
It seems that the list you have contains true facts, and so they belong in MusicBrainz, but it doesn’t contain all the facts which MusicBrainz provides for, in which case, enter what you have evidence for.
My additional suggestions are: 1. Write a brief Annotation for each of your incomplete additions, explaining the source of the evidence, and that the Release entry is incomplete because the evidence did not include that information. 2. Write good edit notes, referring to the same information about the evidence and the incompleteness as went into the Annotation.
Do this, and you contribute today what you know today, plus you build a foundation for an editor tomorrow who might have more information.
This is the key. You can add a skeleton for others to later add the meat of a tracklist. This is why there is an option to tick " I don’t know the tracklist for this medium. "
Are there any multi-medium releases in that list? If they’re clearly marked, great. If not, it might help to indicate somewhere (annotation or edit note, probably) that it’s not known how many cassettes are in the release. When I have a multi-medium release and I want to match it up against what’s already in the database, I usually ignore any single-medium releases that otherwise look the same.
We can add several empty mediums, it’s even more clear than annotation. 
There are some, kind of like that, with several 0 track mediums, among the 0 track medium releases.
You mean actual releases that have empty mediums, not just unknown tracklists? I wonder if that’s ever been done, and I kinda want to do it if not.
Cassettes often have non-magnetic transparent tape at the ends of the magnetic tape, right? Would a cassette with just the non-magnetic tape be considered a medium with 0 tracks?
I don’t remember if CDDA supports 0 tracks, but a silent pregap and 0 tracks seems like it would count.
If I could find a blank vinyl and cut a spiral groove from the outer edge to the run-out with a knife, that would count as 0 tracks, I think.
Digital seems tricky. Would a blog post saying “this is an album with 1 medium with 0 tracks, here’s the cover art” count? (I could also check if Bandcamp supports 0 tracks, but I kinda doubt it.)
It has already been done, see my 0 track medium releases link.
What I didn’t find is release with only 0 track medium(s).
Yes, but have you ever seen one?
It would be not elligible to here, IMO.
My 0 track medium release example is for when we haven’t time to add all the video tracks, for example, or when we don’t know the content because we don’t have the release in hands.
It’s for the OP case.
I don’t know what you’re looking for but vinyls with one of its sides, usually B side, completely slick, with no groove, does exist.
I wouldn’t count it as a valid MB music release, just like the cassette with no magnetic surface.
But these are all hypothetical, and not related to the OP, anyway.
Thanks, this has all been very helpful. First time I read about the “I don’t know the tracklisting” option, which is the way to enter these items of course.
I will be getting scans of several items later so might be able to add more info.
@jerry1970 on the opposite end of the scale, sometimes future releases are added with zero tracks because we know they’re going to be released (artwork, artist statements, etc) but don’t yet know the tracklisting. So it’s fine to do the same with past releases too.
