OK…I’m drooling over two albums I just came across but confused on releases already in the system. The album is a compilation of multiple prior albums and the song titles either have the word remastered or remastered and the year depending on the website you look at for purchasing downloads. Specifically, I’m looking at Qobuz:
Now, when I look at the release group: Release group “50 Years: Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac - MusicBrainz
The main thing I have noticed amongst these releases are remastered has been removed from the song titles. Why? From my point of view, I like seeing that information on my song title when I’m playing it and it separates the songs from the original recording. Now, I’m not talking about attaching works to each song…I know the songs get attached to the original but having remastered or remastered and the year removed makes no sense to me. It’s on the song title on the websites so I would expect it on MB. So, if I add an additional release from Qobuz I don’t want this information disappearing. So before I go through all the work of doing this I want to make sure this won’t be done. But really, the bigger question is why this was done. I have noticed this on some of my music where the information is removed in the past. Maybe it’s a mistake? Maybe I’m just missing something? Am I explaining this properly? If not, please ask…I’m mainly concerned with the title of the song and information not showing. Thank you all!!
There are long threads \ old arguments around as to why MB hates the concept of remastering.
Short version - Mostly just a sales gimmick. MB focuses on the original recordings. Those original tapes. When the artist originally recorded this track. This is why you find the original recording and the remastered recording merged.
Other editors also hate ETI so will strip ETI from digital stores. Again due to it be a sales gimmick.
Now if someone has actually remixed the track and done something different with it, then it would be new recordings.
My personal opinion - before spending time on MB I thought my remastered releases were something special. Then I started to listen to them back to back with older recordings. Audacity is good for this. I often find the track is just a bit louder. Or maybe a bit clearer if I am lucky (rare). But generally it really is just the same old recording again.
I only remove “remastered” if it’s the same on every track. Just like you’d remove “live” if it was on every track on a live release. However, on compilations when they have different years on the remastered ETI I keep them or if only some of the tracks are remastered and some are not, I keep that info. So, yes, on the release you link above, I’d remove that as it’s the same info on every track. Just add that info to the annotation.
Also, it’s not consistent from site to site much of the time. On Apple it’s just “remastered” on Quboz/Spotify/Deezer it’s “2018 remaster”.
LOL…garbage in garbage out…I blame the websites for that! I completely agree that they (websites for purchasing) are not consistent with what the record labels release. I rely a lot on Jaxsta since that info is coming directly from the labels but a good example is this album…on Jaxsta it shows all the songs as “one disc songs 1-50” and all the websites either have it as 50 songs or they break it into “three discs”…talk about irritating!!
As far as ETI information is concerned…I do not agree that removing remastered is appropriate. Obviously, work was done on the song (even though it is the same song and rightly so is attached to the original work) and should stay. As time goes on we have better technology and hopefully older songs sound better. Guess I do not understand why their is such a thing to always “merge” title of recordings thereby stripping this information off. You would think that MB is documenting all the different versions that having remasters under the original work would be fine. And I’m not talking remixes because those are a whole different animal !! Of course, I’m not saying not to add to the annotation, from a MB website perspective, that it’s a deluxe remastered album (that helps differentiate if any future releases of this album come out). But again, Jaxsta doesn’t show a 20 song version either. Too bad we don’t have a music label insider to explain why their data/albums are so messed up across platforms…LOL
ETI is a weird thing. Some editors seem to want to remove all of it. I’ve seen concert details stripped, mix details, almost anything. @tigerman325’s logic makes sense. If it is the same phrase for a whole album, then loose it. If its different per track (or batches of tracks) then keep it.
If you see a digital shop adding (2018 Remaster) then I see no harm in adding it to a track list, but be prepared for someone else to strip it.
If you consider that people shuffle tracks across many albums in their playlists, it doesn’t make sense to remove ETI that happens to be the same across all tracks on the same album.
That is about how you tag your files, not how the database is organised. I have all kinds of little Picard scripts I have to enable to put back stuff that was moved to ETI on recordings or releases. In my case that focus is often with live albums.
A lot of ETI on the digital stores is there because they can’t be bothered to code around that if they didn’t stuff it all into the title, their search results would be useless.
MB isn’t limited in that sense, so there’s no reason to import it.
There’s always going to be some limitations with tagging because of the way most audio players work, but I think we should aim for increasing the options rather than reducing them. You can choose to add disambiguations to titles, but it’s difficult to remove forced ETI when it isn’t wanted.
Additional information on a release or track name that is not part of its main title, but intended to distinguish it from different releases or tracks with the same main title (such as version/remix names or live recording info), should be entered in parentheses after the main title.
There’s no implication that ETI Style is to be dropped if all tracks on the same release have the same ETI. In fact, it’s reasonable to believe that ETI Style applies to tracks across releases since it applies to comparisons between different releases.
While live recording names are supposed to be re-stylized in MusicBrainz, live track names are not.
If all the ETI is the same on different track titles on one release, it’s not “intended to distinguish it from different releases or tracks with the same main title”, so this wouldn’t apply.
And see that is the main problem…because once it is removed…it’s gone. Having to use Picard and do programming to add information back in is not a solution.
Well done…PERFECT!! Disambiguation is not supposed to be used specifically for tracks. The labels add this information onto tracks because it identifies that specific song…it has been this way since I can remember and I’m getting old and started getting music when records were a thing…LOL
It’s not gone. We have relationships to link live tracks to their recording locations and dates. We have the disambiguation field for stuff that isn’t so straightforward. We have remixer, editor, etc. relationships and proper artist credtis.
Trying to use the title field to store everything is a poor solution for a musicdatabase.
Consider, featuring artists are normally listed by labels in the song title because it identifies that specifc song - it’s been this way since I can remember and I’m getting old and started getting music when records were a thing. But we move it to the artist credit, because it’s a better place for it.
Of course, I’m not saying not to add to the annotation, from a MB website perspective, that it’s a deluxe remastered album (that helps differentiate if any future releases of this album come out). But again, Jaxsta doesn’t show a 20 song version either. Too bad we don’t have a music label insider to explain why their data/albums are so messed up across platforms…LOL
