Remove short-term collaboration artist with home page?

MusicBrainz Style
1

Hi,

Should the following collaboration artist be removed?

Or left (as it has its own home page)? Or move the home page to the individual artists + then remove the collab artist?

Thanks

2

They also have their own Bandcamp page, YouTube channel. It seems fairly intentional to treat this collab as its own thing, so I’d keep it as such for the time being probably.

4 Likes
3

We should probably move https://beta.musicbrainz.org/release-group/5bf52a8c-71cf-4af2-87bd-6e84efad8ef0 in to this artist then.

4

I made an edit to change the artist credit, which should also move releases, release groups, recordings, … using it:
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/48665021

1 Like
5

Undoing artist credit hack. Thoughts?
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/64135351

6

I just wanted to say that I’m perplexed by what has been decided here (unanimously!), because this goes completely against how one time collaborations are supposed to be treated in MB. And if the sole reasoning behind this choice is that they quickly put up a BC page and a YT channel to simply promote/sell/stream their material, then we might as well revert back to times of “fake” collab artists for everyone else.

What are the actual arguments (not a technical nuisance like a Bandcamp listing) for keeping a separate entity for these two acclaimed and well recognizable solo artists making a collaborative effort once and still under their own names, and not, say, for PJ Harvey & John Parish? They collaborated twice, on Dance Hall at Louse Point and A Woman a Man Walked By. And yet they’re still credited as two separate artists for both (like they should be). What’s a real difference between the first case and the latter?

I’m seriously baffled about this choice; I think it breaks the consistency of database and I strongly believe that this album should be listed under both Barnett’s and Vile’s discographies.

No one else concluded that this should be a new artistic entity/a new separate band. It’s a two-artist effort everywhere except here on MB:

PS
Yes, I know there are exceptions to all this, there are “Someone & Someone” artists out there, but there’s usually strong argumentation behind it; like the fact that most of their careers they have been composing and/or performing together, that they have little to none solo crediting and especially when they explicitly describe themselves as bands/duos.

7

The reason is they have a clear internet presence as a duo (official website, store, YT channel). If it eventually turns out they never do anything else together, then people might decide it’s reasonable to split them again, but most one-off collaborations, even in the era of easy digital promotion, don’t involve creating shared spaces like that.

3 Likes
8

Wow, ok then. Off the top of my library:

Reo, would you consider bringing all these releases under new, collab entities simply because the particular artists made separate BC accounts for these? Because I think it would be just as far fetched as with Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile.

9

Have several releases together, mentioned as a duo at Get to know Okzharp & Manthe Ribane, the cosmic, politicised r’n’b duo - Features - Mixmag, have their own FB page, their Twitter calls them a group. So yeah.

None of the others seem to have a consistent presence together (it seems to always be just the Bandcamp, without an official website or anything else of the sort) so those I would probably still keep separate myself, although I wouldn’t scream at someone adding them together either. Keep in mind the point of this one being marked as one artist wasn’t just they had a Bandcamp page. They have their own website together, which means someone is at the very least still paying for hosting etc, has designed it all and whatnot - it’s not as throwaway as a Bandcamp page.

2 Likes
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Agreed with Okzharp & Manthe Ribane. Ever since he started using Okzharp alias, Manthe has been consistently featured on his releases and it looks like it’s gonna continue so.

But when it comes to having a shared website, I just don’t see it. Popular artists backed by big indie labels can afford that. Should they start collaborating full time, then the separate entity is warranted.

There is one, strong argument that speaks to me in favour of keeping this entity. It’s a quote from their website:

It’ll be a cookin band and an interncontinental country duo for the ages (minus the country, haha)

This actually suggests that it may be a continuing effort, but still it may be so under the alias of their tour band, “The Sea Lice”.

PS
So what about PJ Harvey & John Parish then? They have two albums, separated by 13 years and they’ve been frequently working on music together for decades now.