Blue Sky Black Death has an album called “Noire”. In the Noire release group you can find Noire and Noire DLXE which is a delux version containing bonus remixes.
Then there is also an additional release group called Noire + Violet which only contains some of the remixes from Noire DLXE, but no original tracks from Noire.
I’d still argue it should be in the same release group.
Instrumental versions of albums are also in the same release group as the original, so shouldn’t it be the same with remix albums (unless of course the remix album is credited to a different artist)?
Here are two related discussions, one about remix singles:
and one about different language versions of the same album:
It seems there is no general consensus about any of this yet.
But just from a MetaBrainz user’s point of view: If I wondered whether there was a remix version of a specific album I’d search in that album’s release group and not go to the artist and scroll down to the remix albums. There I’d rather expect albums with random remixes.
The idea of release groups is that the releases in there should be mostly equivalent. So, someone who’s not a hardcore collector will generally only need one of the releases in a release group.
For example: I would not consider these two equivalent (neither does Wikipedia FWIW) and I think the current two RGs option is better for them:
That said, your specific example is a bit trickier than strictly “album vs remix album”, so I’m not sure what’s the ideal option there.
I didn’t listen to those examples, but I imagine they are mostly instrumentals and according to the displayed first paragraph of the wikipedia article these remixes were created by various producers and recording artists, which I’d say makes it a whole new album too.
My example above however is entirely remixed by the same group and basically the songs are just played more slowly (I’m sure there is more to it, but that’s the only way they feel different).
Other examples where I would merge are if the music is not instrumental and the remix album contains remixes (by different producers) where the vocals are not changed.
What about deluxe editions then?
If you have the deluxe edition then you have the main album, but not the other way around.
E.g.: This release group could then be split into at least 4, because of different deluxe/collectors versions with bonus discs with all new material:
But then you come into the completionist area who want all the editions or at least all the tracks possible in all the editions.
This is one step further.
The question/dialogue would be « Do you have L’ÉCOLE DU MICRO D’ARGENT ? — Yes I do. — Oh but do you have the ultimate edition ? — Oh, no, I just have the Japanese edition with 2 bonus tracks that were later included among 100 other bonus tracks in the French ultimate edition… »
All I’m saying is that this rule of thumb is open to lots of interpretations.
If you are not a completionist then you probably don’t need a remix album with screwed versions of the songs. Especially if you have a device or app that allows you to change the playback speed.
Still you downvoted an edit of mine where I tried to merge such a release into the original RG.
In the Blue Sky Black Death example if you have the original album you probably have about 95% of the material of the remix album. The other way around it’s more like 60% since the remix album has fewer tracks.
In the IAM example if you have the original album you have 50% or 33% of some of the collectors editions. If you have the most complete collectors edition you have 100% of the material.
In some other examples when an album has different deluxe versions with different bonus tracks you’ll probably never get more than 95% of the material with just one version of the album either.
If you have this album you have 100% of the material of this album. Same the other way around, still they are currently not in the same release group.
So I fail to see how “do I have this album if I have that album?” is a clear indicator of whether they should be in the same RG.
We will discuss your examples one by one but for this one first.
One is the normal tracks while the other is either just vocals alone or just instruments alone.
You cannot say you have the same recordings at all.
Technically per the style guidelines a remix album is a separate release group. It gets pretty confusing when there are multi disc releases featuring a new release, but including the original album (see all the Yes/XTC/Jethro Tull Steven Wilson remixes). For the most part people seem to be keeping them in the same release group. But then an LP of just the Steven Wilson remix gets released. Should that be a new release group? Or in the original. So far the original seems to be winning out despite the guideline to the contrary.
Here’s an example of this that is being debated. I personally think that the remix and original should not be the same if they have totally different tracklist. However, sometimes you’ll see a single as defined on iTunes/Spotify/label, etc have a few remix tracks and still call it the original single and sometimes you’ll basically the same release with a name on the cover called (remixes) even though it starts with the original track.
I would have thought that if it was a release of only Steven Wilson remixes, it would be a new RG. But I guess there are more than I realized that were putting remixes in with the original releases release group.
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