The problem is when is the (music) artist doing this, and when is the (graphic) artist doing it?
If anything this gives MB more reason to double down on the correction of capitals… It is often going to be difficult for us to tell the difference between real artist intent and a graphical choice. This is not just a modern thing.
the clearest cases would be when artists self-release music via Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and even on Spotify & co via a service like DistroKid. I’ve seen too many cases like this to count in my corner of MusicBrainz… even some physical media where the artist is also the graphic artist could mayhaps count?
a few examples for the thread:
edit: I’ve noticed CAPSLOCK is especially prevalent in hardcore techno and adjacent genres (which admittedly is most of my examples above)
This is a trend unrelated to graphic design - it’s ‘kids’ doing it, which means digital first and foremost, often with no physical available at all.
I’m very keen on a line in that article, “orthography as a dimension of expression”, which I think it can be (e.g. there can be meaning and cultural trends in how caps is used).
But, as always, it’s our lord and saviour, Alternative Tracklists, that will make all this a mute point. The truly devout maintain that this mythical saviour will yet walk among us
This needs to be defined somewhere. Otherwise you’ll find an editor picking up an old CD with titles in ALL CAPS and attempting to follow the same ruleset. “Alternative Tracklists” will not fix that as it is very rarely the intent with those old CDs.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying these designs choices should not be followed when they are intentional. Just need to get some kind of definition on it otherwise a huge number of older CD release could suddenly get flipped to CAPS.
This album I added this week is clearly a graphic artist choice:
At no point on that CD is mixed case used on track titles, but the Bandcamp page uses normal Mixed Case.
A clean definition is needed to avoid the potential arguments.
